Tyler O’Neil, a 2½-year-old orphaned by a four-car crash that killed his parents and older brother on the Fourth of July, is recovering from his physical injuries, but the emotional pain may take longer to fade.
William Frostman and Connie Marcy, the siblings of Tyler’s mother, Karen O’Neil, said Tuesday that the boy, who family members still have not decided where to permanently place, still looks for family.
“He’s been calling out for ‘Daddy,”‘ Frostman said.
He is too young to verbalize his thoughts, but the trauma from that night has left him visibly shaken, Marcy said.
“We can get him to giggle and laugh and play with a toy (but) … he’ll still stare off into space though,” Marcy, of Georgia, said at a news conference.
The O’Neil family was driving home from a fireworks show when a tow truck bounced off two other cars and careened into their Chrysler sedan, police said. Strangers rushed to assist the family, but only Tyler, who suffered a broken leg, survived.
Frostman and Marcy thanked the bystanders who tried to help.
During a harried 911 call, a woman can be overheard asking anyone within earshot for a pocketknife to cut the boy from his seat belt. A police dispatcher asks her if she can feel for a pulse on Tyler’s father, behind the steering wheel of the car, and she does.
Karen O’Neil, 43, and Trevor O’Neil, 4, will be buried Thursday in Wisconsin. William O’Neil, 40, will be buried in Lakewood.
“It’s for the living,” Frostman said. “It’s so my mother can visit Karen’s grave and (William)’s father can visit his. … They have to grieve.”
