The extended family of 2½-year-old Tyler O’Neil, who was left orphaned by a four-car crash that killed his parents and older brother on the Fourth of July, said the boy is recovering at a relative’s home and that his future home is still being decided.
Speaking at a press conference in Aurora today, William Frostman and Connie Marcy, the siblings of Tyler’s mother, Karen O’Neil, said they have not listened to recordings police have made available of frantic witnesses who called 911 to describe the carnage from the wreck.
But they thanked those who rushed to help pull Tyler from the backseat of the smoking car and held onto him until rescue crews arrived.
During a harried 911 call, a woman can be overheard asking anyone within an 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.
The O’Neil family was driving home from a holiday 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. Only Tyler survived.
“The lady who pulled Tyler from the car was just wonderful,” Marcy said.
“I don’t know how to say thank you enough,” Frostman said.
Tyler is recovering from a broken femur, with his extended family trying to keep his spirits up, Frostman and Marcy 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. He’ll still stare off into space though,” said Marcy, who lives in Georgia.
“He’s been calling out for ‘Daddy,'” Frostman said.
Police have not made a decision on whether to charge the driver who caused the wreck, but Frostman said that for now, the family is more concerned with helping Tyler.
“We’re still talking about where his eventual home will be and where’s the best place for Tyler,” Frostman said.
Karen O’Neil, 43, and Trevor O’Neil, 4, will be buried Thursday in Wisconsin. William O’Neil, 40, will be buried in Lakewood. Both funerals will be open to family and close friends, Frostman said.
In explaining why the family was being buried apart from each other, Frostman said that it was best to help surviving relatives cope with the loss.
“It’s for the living,” Frostman said, adding that the separation would allow his mother to visit Karen’s grave and William’s father to visit his. “They have to grieve,” he said.
