Awful news

Samantha Jensen's shared the image on TikTok after her mum snapped the picture just five minutes before her daughter was hit by a hit-and-run driver.

"My mom took this picture at 4:47 pm and my daughter's time of death was 4:52," the mum wrote in a video that went viral on TikTok.

"My mom didn't know she was capturing the last moments of her life. This one is really hard for me to look at, just knowing what comes next breaks my heart."

Jensen said that she was away from home at a wedding, and so had left her mum in charge of three-year-old Scarlett and her two-year-old brother Henry.

"That afternoon they went to get ice cream and enjoy a walk together," Jensen told People.

"When they arrived home to our back driveway, Scarlett wanted to get out of the stroller to pick flowers. That’s when my mom took the last picture I have of her alive."

Jensen went on to explain that the trio were walking down their driveway on a private road when a Chevy Tahoe came speeding along the lane.

"My mother was waving her hands, screaming for him to stop and she tried to grab my children to move them out of the way but he was going too fast," Jensen said.

"Scarlett was killed almost instantly and my mom and Henry were critically injured."

It was later reported by local news outlet KHQ that the car drove off, but then authorities caught it miles away.

Henry and his grandmother were rushed to hospital, where the two-year-old was placed in the PICU before later being moved.

"It is a blessing we had Scarlett, she had the perfect life, just surrounded and filled with love every day,” Scarlett's grandfather, Jim Patton, told KHQ. "A piece of my soul is gone."

He added that now he is now focussing on his grandson's recovery.

"Henry spent a week in the PICU before he was stable enough to come home, and he had a full body brace on for 10 weeks," Jensen told People.

The mother added that it took her mum Jamie weeks before she realised she had the photo of Scarlett.

"My mom lost her phone when they were hit and it took us a while to find it, so when we finally did I was going through pictures and found that one," Jensen said.

"I looked at the timestamp and realised it was only five minutes before her declared time of death, so it must have been taken seconds before the person hit them."

A GoFundMe has been set up for the family to help cover medical costs and funeral costs.