Antony Francis Antonysamy was driving past a crash scene on Pound Road in Narre Warren South when he stopped to help. What he found was his own son, lying unresponsive in a roadside ditch while a passing motorist performed CPR.
"I said 'Chris, do not bail on us. Chris, come back to us,'" Antonysamy told 7News. "It just broke my heart. He was in the ditch. One person was trying CPR. They lifted him to a stretcher. That's when I saw bleeding in his right ear."
Chris Antony, a 16-year-old Year 11 student, had been walking home from school along a route he had taken many times before. A car swerved off Pound Road and struck him. He was airlifted to hospital with critical head injuries and died one week later. He was, his parents say, just five minutes from the front door.
"His soul was still with us in that intensive care unit and we strongly believed that he would come back to us, until the last moment," his father said.
Those who knew Chris describe a young man of warmth and deep faith. His mother, Agaligai Antony, called him the perfect son. "Whatever I say, he never says no," she said. His sister Auxilia said she had lost her best friend, someone she now understands was "a built-in best friend for life" given to her by God. Close friends Leo Soni Palahanickal and Isindu Rajapakshe spoke of a gap in their lives that, as Leo put it, he would honour by naming a future child after Chris.
"He was a faithful person. He never hurt anyone. He was extraordinarily kind and polite," Antonysamy said. "Those are things that will stay with us for the rest of our lives."
Beyond their grief, the family is now directing their energy toward preventing another death on the same stretch of road. Pound Road carries traffic at 70km/h, and the family says the footpath sits dangerously close to the carriageway with no physical barrier between pedestrians and vehicles. They are calling on authorities to install protective metal barriers, arguing the cost is trivial against the value of a human life.
"So will they wake up and do something to protect? Matter of a few thousand dollars to install those metal bars," Antonysamy said.
The 48-year-old female driver from Narre Warren South sustained minor injuries. Victoria Police confirmed they had not yet interviewed her as investigations continue, and no charges have been laid. Auxilia said the family held no personal animosity toward the driver. "My quarrel isn't really with the driver, but with understanding why it had to be him," she said.
The question of pedestrian infrastructure on arterial and suburban roads is one that VicRoads and local councils across Victoria have grappled with for years. Roads built or upgraded before contemporary safety standards were applied often leave pedestrians with little physical protection from traffic, particularly on higher-speed roads passing through residential areas. The Australian Road Safety Foundation consistently identifies pedestrian exposure on high-speed roads as a preventable risk factor, one that relatively modest infrastructure investments can substantially reduce.
There is a reasonable debate to be had about how governments prioritise limited transport infrastructure budgets. Road agencies receive thousands of requests for safety upgrades each year, and not every site can be treated immediately. But that prioritisation process must weigh the cost of inaction honestly, and a footpath metres from 70km/h traffic, used daily by school students walking home, presents a risk that is both visible and addressable.
Chris Antony's family understands that grief alone does not change policy. They are channelling their loss into a public call for action, asking that the road that took their son be made safer for every other child who walks it. That is a request that should not require a tragedy to be taken seriously. The Australian Government's road safety framework sets a goal of zero deaths and serious injuries on Australian roads by 2050. Achieving it demands that the gap between stated ambition and local infrastructure reality be closed, one barrier, one footpath, one road at a time.