CINCINNATI — Sixteen-year-old Kyle Plush died Tuesday when a seat in a 2004 Honda Odyssey crushed him.
Investigators believe Plush was reaching for tennis racket from the rear of the van.
"The young man was trapped in the third row bench seat, and it is called positional asphyxiation," said Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters said. "We are actively trying to identify experts to assist in us in this investigation."
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The third row in the van folds down to make more room in the cargo area, and when Plush leaned into the seat, he possibly caused the back seat to fall backward, pinning him upside down between the seat and the van’s hatch.
Plush suffocated, and the coroner ruled his death an accident.
There were no seat-related recalls on the 2004 version that Plush died in, a 2004 model, according to Honda. For the 2011-2017 models, there is a recall on the second row outer seats.
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According to Honda, when installing or repositioning the seat into either position, it’s possible that the rear latch may not attach properly to the correct position on the seat striker.
Deters is launching a full investigation to determine what exactly happened that led to the death, WCPO-TV reports.
Teen called 911 as he was dying
Officials with the city of Cincinnati and the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office are also investigating why dispatchers, police officers and deputies were unable to find Plush in time to save his life.
Audio of Plush’s 911 calls, which have not been released by the media due to their graphic nature, indicated that he became increasingly desperate as his condition deteriorated. In the first call, placed shortly after 3 p.m., the teen was gasping for air as he screamed repeatedly for help, saying he was stuck inside his van “at Seven Hills.”
Plush was a sophomore at Seven Hills School, a private academy for grades pre-K through 12. He died in a parking lot near the school’s Hillsdale campus.
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“I can’t hear you,” Plush told the dispatcher, according to WCPO. “I need help. I’m gonna die here.”
The dispatcher either could not hear him clearly or did not understand what he was trying to say. She asked, over and over, “Where are you? What is the address?”
“I probably don’t have much time left, so tell my mom that I love her if I die,” the teen said.
A timeline established by the news station indicates that Plush got disconnected about six or seven minutes after he placed his first call. Officers who were dispatched when that call ended tried calling him back, but the call went to voicemail.
When they did not get a response, the officers marked their assignment complete, the WCPO timeline said.
In his second call, Plush again made it clear that he knew he was dying.
“This is not a joke. I’m trapped inside my gold Honda Odyssey van in the parking lot of Seven Hills Hillsdale.”
“Send officers immediately. I’m almost dead.”
As the second call ended, Plush appeared to struggle to breathe.
Throughout the second call, Plush could be asking, "Hey, Siri?" It appeared that he used the iPhone voice command to call 911.
Investigators did not say where in the van they found the teen’s phone.
It was also unclear when Plush’s second call, which lasted about three minutes, was placed.
A Hamilton County sheriff’s deputy working a traffic detail at Seven Hills responded to the calls about 10 minutes after city officers marked their assignment complete and 32 minutes after Plush’s first call for help, WCPO reported.
The deputy was also unable to find Plush’s van, and though he continued searching, he questioned whether the calls had been a prank.
The dispatcher pointed out that she put in the 911 system that the caller could be in a thrift store parking lot across the street from the school, Fox19 in Cincinnati reported.
“I was in there. I just looked in a van over there. I didn’t see anybody in it,” the deputy said, according to the news station.
It was not clear if the van the deputy found was Plush’s minivan.
Plush’s mother, identified by his elementary school as Jill Plush, also called 911 Tuesday evening after she and his father, Ron, determined he was missing.
“My son never came home from school,” Jill Plush said, according to Fox19. “We thought he was at a tennis match, and he never came home from school.”
The parent of one of Kyle Plush’s friends wrote in a Facebook post that the match was to be the teen’s first.
“He had been on the practice squad of the tennis team and was due to play in his first match yesterday,” Jackie Taggart-Boyd wrote. “He didn’t show up. Hours later, they discovered him.”