I must say that this is a pretty grim scenario showcasing how much people value the life of a child over that of an adult. I don't know the exact reason as to why people think that way but I'm not arguing it either.

Anyway, I would have to go with running into the poor kid. It would suck, and I would feel bad. The thing is, I would feel even worse if I wound up taking the route with the 10 men and killed even one of them.

What if that one man was a father? I may be wrong but I feel that, at the end of the day, the death of an adult would most likely affect more people than the death of a child. Adults usually have close friends, possibly a spouse and maybe even kids. A family. Now imagine if one of the main components of that family suddenly disappeared. You would have the widow (assuming that she loved her spouse) broken up emotionally, as well as the child having to grow up without a father. Close friends would feel the blow as well.

In the case of the kid dying, it isn't easy at all, or fair, to say that the parents can make another kid. That's not the point I'm trying to make. The death of the child may affect the parents and immediate family pretty bad, but the main makeup of the family would still be intact (Father + Mother).

When looking at it from this perspective, the choices you have are to either:

Fuck up 10 families

or

Temporarily Fuck up 1

I'll choose the last one.