A 2-year-old boy is fighting for his life in Children’s Hospital after he was hit Thursday night by a truck in the street in front of his home in Aurora.
The boy, whose identity has not been released, is breathing on a ventilator and suffering bleeding in the brain, according to Aurora police.
He was hit around 9 p.m. at the intersection of Kentucky and Waco streets, said Aurora police Lt. Troy Edwards, who was the first officer on the scene. The boy was following his father across Kentucky when an eastbound Mitsubishi pickup hit the child. The father said that he believed his son was back at his house with the boy’s aunt and didn’t know he was following him.
Edwards said that when he pulled up, a large group of people had surrounded the little boy, who was thrown about 10 feet by the impact of the pickup, and a woman was performing CPR on the child.
The boy was rushed to Children’s Hospital in Denver in life-threatening condition, Edwards said.
“He was in really bad shape when I saw him,” Edwards said. “I didn’t think he was going to make it, from what I saw.”
A man and a woman who live next door to the boy and his family said Friday that several children knocked on their door Thursday night and begged them to call the police. Outside, the couple said, it was chaos. Another neighbor performed CPR on the boy to get him breathing again. The boy’s family was hysterical.
“The mom was so distraught, she could hardly stand,” said the woman, who declined to give her name. “She’d try to stand up, and then she’d fall back down.”
“It was a very heartbreaking sight just to see him lying there,” said the man, who also declined to give his name. “He was just flat. You could tell his legs were broken.”
The driver of the truck stopped and was very concerned, according to police.
During an interview, officers detected an odor of alcohol, and the driver disclosed that he had been drinking that night. He submitted to a blood-alcohol test. The results are not yet available.
Edwards said the driver, whose identity was not released, was not arrested. Whether he will be charged will be determined by the results of the blood test, he said.
“Looking at the scene, I didn’t see any skid marks,” Edwards said. “I don’t know if he even saw the boy until after he hit him. He did pull over, though, and was very concerned.”
Staff writer John Ingold contributed to this report.
Staff writer Manny Gonzales can be reached at 303-954-1537 or mgonzales@denverpost.com.
