Levi Wright, the 3-year-old son of rodeo star Spencer Wright, has died. In a statement posted on Facebook, a close family friend said the Wrights took Levi off of life support on Sunday, two weeks after the child rode his toy tractor near a waterway and was found unconscious in water a mile from home.
Late last month, Levi – who just turned 3 in March – was playing at the family’s home in Beaver County, Utah. His mom, Kallie Wright, ran inside their home for just a moment, and when she came back out, her son was gone, according to close family friend Mindy Clark. She saw his toy tractor that he had been playing on overturned and immediately called 911 as she searched for him, Clark said.
He was later found unconscious in water a mile away.
The family was holding onto hope after experiencing what they said were small miracles over the past two weeks, but on Sunday, Kallie Wright wrote on Facebook that they were at “the face of our biggest fear.”
“Levi showed us just enough to buy us time for all of this. We prayed those things were him defying odds & proving to us that he wanted to stay here but we see now he wanted to give us time to find peace with letting him go,” she wrote. “…Here soon I’ll climb into bed with my baby and hold him as he falls asleep for the last time on this earth. I find comfort in knowing he will be restored to the perfect little boy he was & have the ability to do all the things he loves.”
Along with a video of her and her son, Kallie Wright said the family believed “this is the best thing we can do for him” after conducting research and speaking with the “world’s best neurologists.”
In a separate post on Monday, Clark said the ordeal “feels like someone ripped my heart out and squeezed it right in front of me.”
“I cannot even begin to explain how hard the last two weeks have been. From the moment my phone rang the night of his accident, to last night receiving the message that he had to go,” she said, adding that she doesn’t want to focus on the “bad or sad.” “I want to focus on the many miracles we got to bear witness to,” she said.
“The most perfect three year old there ever was. So perfect we didn’t get to keep him,” she said. “This baby boy moved mountains the last 12 days. He brought so many people together. In a world so dark, we got to see light at the hands of a child. He’s everything his mom and dad could’ve wanted him to be,” she said. “I am so thankful for all the time I got to be his ‘aunt Mindy’. That is a blessing I will never be able to top.”
The accident occurred on May 21, when the Beaver County Sheriff’s Office said it responded to a call that a child had driven their tractor into the water. Police said “life saving measures were administered on scene” before the child was taken to the hospital and eventually airlifted to Primary Children’s Hospital.
A couple days prior to Levi being taken off of life support, Kallie Wright wrote in a Facebook update that doctors had tried to take the 3-year-old out of sedation, but “he did not handle it.” They conducted another 24-hour electroencephalogram (EEG) – a test to measure brain activity – as well as another MRI as part of an effort in “checking and double checking all we can,” she said.
“They are keeping Levi comfortable,” she said, adding that he was placed back under heavy sedation.
Levi is one of three children between Kallie Wright and Spencer Wright, who is ranked No. 40 in the world in saddle bronc riding.
Li Cohen is a senior social media producer at CBS News. She previously wrote for amNewYork and The Seminole Tribune. She mainly covers climate, environmental and weather news.
The post Levi Wright, rodeo star’s 3-year-old son, dies after toy tractor accident appeared first on CBS News.
