A 16 year old boy has died after being trapped in his minivan.
On Thursday, the Ohio police started an investigation into why officers failed to get to a teen who died from being trapped in his minivan, despite his making frantic calls for help.
On Tuesday afternoon, 16 year old Kyle Plush was trapped in a 2004 Honda Odyssey in the parking lot of his Cincinnati school. He was recorded to have told an emergency dispatcher over the phone,
“I’m almost dead.”
It was gathered that a rear seat flipped over and trapped him down as he tried to get his tennis gear from the backseat of the minivan. The US media reported that he died of asphyxia as a result of chest compression.
The 16 year old rang 911 twice and described his van and its location. Sadly however, it was not all of the information that was passed on to the responding officers, who were not able to locate the van despite making a sweep of the school premises.
According to ABC News which got access to can recordings, Plush was heard saying during a second call,
“Send officers immediately. I’m almost dead. I probably don’t have much time left. Tell my mom I love her if I die.”
It was a friend who notified the family that Plush was missing, and they tracked his location using a mobile phone application. The lifeless body of the boy was found by a family member nearly six hours after his first call to 911. The Cincinnati police chief, Eliot Isaac said,
“Something went wrong here, and we need to find out why we weren’t able to provide that help.”
He began an internal investigation and placed one of the responding dispatchers on administrative leave.
Honda told AFP that the 2004 model Odyssey involved in the accident had had no seat-related recalls.
Last year, the company recalled 2011-2017 Odyssey minivans for a problem with its second-row seats that could tip forward, but a company spokesman told AFP that the Ohio tragedy was unrelated to that recall.
