Josie Edden was making the same early-morning dash to work she had made for the past four years.
It might have been a day like any other, had the 23-year-old cafe manager not crossed against a flashing “don’t walk” signal, and tripped.
She fell in the middle of Collins Street, into the path of an oncoming garbage truck, about 6am.
Passersby performed CPR, but Ms Edden could not be revived.
Her body lay in the middle of the road, covered by a tarpaulin, when her boyfriend Drew arrived at the scene.
Ms Edden’s colleagues had called Drew when she did not arrive at work. He encountered the accident scene going looking for her from their CBD apartment.
He stayed at the scene, weeping and tightly hugging a black backpack to his chest, only metres from his girlfriend’s body.
Meanwhile, Ms Edden’s colleagues were making their way to work, many taking the same route via Collins Street to Code Black Coffee.
Rita Hanna, 24, sent a text message to her workmates warning them of the tram delays due to the accident on Collins Street.
“I sent through a text message telling everyone to come into work early because there were no trams,” Ms Hanna told reporters at the scene.
“And then we find out that that person that had passed away was one of ours.
“I walked past her in the morning, I did not realise it was her.”
Distressing scenes unfolded at the busy CBD intersection opposite Southern Cross Station, as more of Ms Edden’s friends arrived.
They sat comforting her boyfriend on the footpath, while police interviewed the 47-year-old garbage truck driver, who sat slumped on the ground beside his vehicle.
A worker at a nearby Krispy Kreme store was in tears as she described the “really sombre” scene.
“I’ve never seen something like this,” she said.
It was a sentiment expressed by many of the thousands of commuters making their way to work via the busy Spencer Street intersection.
“It’s terrible, awful,” one man said.
“She’s just there.”
Ms Hanna described Ms Edden as “just one of those happy people”.
“She’s such a humble happy person,” she said.
“The photos she sends to us every Friday. We have a little espresso thing where we send espresso Snapchats, cheeky ones, to all employees. She’s the first one that sends that every morning.
“She puts a smile on everyone’s face, she does everything for everyone, she always stays back after work, she’s such an amazing person.
“So this is just devastating that it’s happened to her. I don’t know what to say.”
Ms Hanna said it was hard to comprehend that Ms Edden was killed while going about her normal morning routine.
“We all hop off the trams, we all run to work so we’re not late. We don’t really notice the things happening around us. We should be paying a little bit more attention, because this stuff could happen to anyone,” she said.
One witness described hearing a loud screech as the garbage truck slammed on its brakes. He said he did not hear a horn and could not see the incident, because his view was obscured by the hordes of commuters streaming past the intersection from Southern Cross Station.
Other witnesses have told police Ms Edden dashed across the crossing against a flashing red “do not walk” signal.
The driver of the garbage truck, which was turning left from Spencer Street into Collins Street, did not see the woman, Sergeant Mark Rose told reporters at the scene.
“It appears the pedestrian has started to cross against the flashing red man, she’s in a bit of a hurry,” Sergeant Rose said.
“It appears she was running and cut the corner against the red man entering the crossing and tripped and the truck’s completed its turn, not seeing her, and run her over.
“There was no way the truck driver would have seen her …There was nothing he could have done.”
Sergeant Rose said a tragic sequence of events led to Ms Eden’s death.
“It is extremely tragic. The message we try to enforce daily in the CBD for pedestrians [is] how dangerous it is when you disobey that red traffic signal. It appears the truck was fully in the right, doing the right thing. The pedestrian has unfortunately been at fault and paid the ultimate sacrifice,” he said.
Meanwhile, shocked customers left tributes for the coffee shop manager on Facebook.
“OMG how tragic! Josie was our daily barista at Code Black, can’t believe it! Absolutely horrible RIP darling girl & thoughts with the poor garbage truck driver. I walk across that intersection every morning on the way to work & it is so dangerous!,” Tamara Radic wrote.
“She didn’t deserve to die like this & the driver doesn’t deserve this horror. Tragic all around. Thoughts with all at Code Black & families/friends.”
This story first appeared in The Age
