Published January 13, 2015
An 8-year-old Mokena (search) boy died inside his family's conversion van when his body became wedged between the rear door and a panel that folds down into a bed.
Tommy Fagan, a second-grader at Arbury Hills School (search) in Mokena, was attending a communion party Sunday and had gone to the van to put away a baseball he had been awarded the day before after he made a double play in a park district game.
Worth Police Chief Patrick O'Connor (search) said there was no locking mechanism in the bed extension. "So when he leaned against it, it took his body weight up against the door," he said.
Asphyxiation was the cause of death, O'Connor said.
"He loved baseball, and he was so excited and proud after getting that game ball," his uncle Rich Eber said.
Arbury Hills Principal Dawn Schiro said social workers from throughout the district were dispatched to the school Monday to counsel grieving children.
Fagan is also survived by his father, Thomas Fagan.
Visitation will be held from 2 to 9 p.m. Wednesday in Robert J. Sheehy & Sons Funeral Home in Orland Park. A service will begin at 10 a.m. Thursday in St. Mary Catholic Church in Mokena.
https://www.foxnews.com/story/boy-8-gets-trapped-in-van-suffocates