A 16-year-old who was suffocating in a van parked outside a school in Ohio asked a 911 dispatcher to tell his mother he loved her a few hours before he was found dead.
“I probably don’t have much time left, so tell my mom I love her if I die,” Kyle Jacob Plush said when he called 911 about 3 p.m.
Tuesday after becoming stuck inside his van outside Seven Hills School in Cincinnati, local television station WCPO reported.
Plush, who’s a sophomore at the school, had apparently become trapped by a folding seat inside his van, according to WLWT.
Cincinnati police searched the campus parking lots but were unable to locate the van.
At one point, a deputy sent to the scene called in and questioned whether the call was a prank, WCPO reported.
During a second call to 911 Plush again asked for help. “This is not a joke,” he said. “I am trapped inside a gold Honda Odyssey van in the parking lot of Seven Hills. … Send officers immediately. I’m almost dead.”
Authorities said that they tried to call Plush’s phone when they were unable to locate him, but no one answered, WLWT reported.
The van was finally located in a parking lot adjacent to the school by Plush’s father at about 9 p.m. The teen was already dead inside.
The coroner determined his death to be accidental “asphyxia caused by chest compression.”
Plush’s uncle, who wished to remain unidentified, told reporters on Wednesday that Plush was a “great kid” who the 911 system failed.
