Boy Dies in Freak Truck Accident
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SYLMAR — A 4-year-old Van Nuys boy was killed Wednesday when he crawled beneath a parked tow truck hooked to a car and the driver drove off, authorities said.
The accident occurred about 12:30 p.m. in the 13800 block of Cranston Avenue in Sylmar, said Brian Humphrey, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department.
The boy and his mother had been standing on the sidewalk when the boy--unnoticed by his mother or the operators of the tow truck--apparently got under one of the vehicles, said Officer Bill Mulviheel of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Valley Traffic Division.
The driver started up and one wheel ran over the child, authorities said. Paramedics found the boy with massive head and chest injuries and barely breathing, according to Humphrey.
He was rushed in an ambulance to a helicopter landing site at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar, where a Fire Department crew landed and took the boy and his mother to Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, Humphrey said.
He died just after 5 p.m., Mulviheel said.
No one was cited while the accident remained under investigation.
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