Remembering the Feasterville boy, 2, killed in storm. Little Dax inspires community giving

Feasterville Fire Co. Chief Christopher Cummins was nearly at the scene of the tragedy when he learned the victim was in preschool.

“It was absolutely horrific,” he said. “I’ve been to a lot, lot, lot, lot of calls and seen a lot, lot, lot, lot of things and this is going to stick with me for the rest of my life.”

Dax Theodore Babcock, five weeks shy of his 3rd birthday, had been playing with his 6-year-old brother, Colton, and their mom, Karen, in their Lower Southampton backyard on a spring Saturday.

They were unaware that a powerful thunderstorm was approaching.

Around 4 p.m. a wind gust ahead of the storm broke a 30-foot section of tree on the property.

The limb fell on Dax, killing him, and leaving those who knew him and his family, and those who didn’t, feeling helpless and struggling to find meaning in the loss of a child with so much life in front of him.

First responders are trained to deal with almost every imaginable crisis, but none of it prepared Cummins for this. The one thing the fire chief knew that he could do was drive to a nearby Catholic church and bang on the rectory door.

When the pastor answered, Cummins told him what happened and they immediately returned to the Babcock home.

Every emergency responder who handled the April 22 call was deeply impacted.

“Even the dispatchers,” Cummins said.

Lower Southampton Fire Marshal Ryan Smith visited the family a couple days after the accident. He called them "truly remarkable" people.

“This is a call that has truly changed me as a person in a lot of ways," Smith said in a Facebook post." It is a call that I will never forget and one I hope to never respond to again."

"Dax in a nutshell is cars"

Michael Babcock described his youngest son as a larger-than-life Disney character: A round head, chubby pink cheeks, a toothy smile and a personality as magnetic as his enormous blue eyes.

He struggled to pick a favorite story about Dax: Karate tournaments, tractor supply store visits, carnivals, tailgating at Penn State games, camping trips, monster truck rallies.

“We were literally nonstop,” Babcock said. “I don’t think we had a weekend that was boring.”

Like most preschoolers, Dax was a huge "Sesame Street” and “Elmo” fan, but nothing held his attention more than anything with four wheels and an engine.

Radio controlled cars, pedal cars, Fred Flintstone foot-powered cars, Lego cars, fire trucks, police cars, monster trucks, racing cars, Matchbox and Hot Wheels, Dax and his older brother had all of them, and they never had enough.

Every trip to the grocery store seemed to end with new additions to their collections.

“Dax in a nutshell is cars,” Babcock said.

It’s the reason why the family requested that everyone who attended his life celebration service bring a Hot Wheels or Matchbox car that would be part of a display.

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A community responds: "It has shaken us to the core"

When Cummins learned the family was asking people to donate toy cars, he immediately started calling local first responders and community leaders.  Within two days, 400 cars were collected.

“You couldn’t find a Matchbox car within a five-mile radius of Feasterville,” he said.

On Midfield Road, where the family has lived for nine years in July, home cooked meals, sympathy cards and gift baskets flooded the Babcock home.  Someone is always happy to listen to another Dax story. No request is too big or too small.

The Babcocks blended easily into this established neighborhood where people come together for block parties, holiday gatherings and support each other in good times and bad.

Everyone on the street knows Colton and Dax. The brothers and their parents were always outside playing with remote control cars and ride-on trucks. Dax never tired of playing with the police cars.

“As long as it had four wheels, he was happy,” neighbor Dave Mooney said. “I never saw him without a smile on his face.”

The day of the accident, neighbors banded together and immediately cut down the damaged tree and removed it, so it was gone before the family returned from the hospital where Colton and his mother, who were not injured, were taken to as a precaution.

“We’re a tighter knit community than before,” Mooney added. “It has shaken us to the core.  We are bonding together.”

Spreading the love: A family's promise to their son and community

The day of the funeral the family learned that nearly 2,000 toy cars take up a lot of room.  Not even the 10-foot-long highway named “Dax Road” that Michael Babcock’s brother built in his garage could accommodate them all.

“Very quickly that road became flooded with traffic,” Michael Babcock said. “It was amazing. One of the best, uplifting moments.”

Those moments are what the family has clung to as they grieve and start the healing process. They have also served as inspiration.

“Spreading the love around,” is the way Babcock put it.

The family plans to donate most of the toy cars they received to local schools, children's charities, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. 

They have also started a Go-Fund-Me page to raise money for projects that celebrate their son’s life. The donations exceeded $30,000 as of Sunday afternoon, far surpassing the initial $2,500 goal.

Planning is in its infancy, but among the ideas that have been floated are an annual car show, maybe coinciding with Dax’s May 27 birthday. Playground equipment is definitely on the list, Babcock said.  A community park dedicated to Dax would be the ultimate memorial.

“I can’t tell you what that dream would mean,” Babcock said. “Generational impact is the goal.”

Whatever way his son is remembered he wants to make sure it’s something that benefits the community whose support has kept his family moving forward.

“I don’t know what we would do if we didn’t have the net the community cast. The invisible force that holds you up when you want to fall to your knees,” Babcock said.

“You can’t put words to it, how truly amazing and uplifting. In your darkest moment you can turn to that one thing and can spin it from dark to hope.”

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This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Feasterville toddler Dax Babcock killed by tree branch honored