May 15, 2009

Police await autopsy results

       An autopsy was performed Thursday, but police still aren't sure whether a 69-year-old Illinois man died as a result of a single-vehicle accident or from a medical condition.  Edward Boyd died Wednesday while picking up his grandchildren for a custody visit.  He started struggling before driving off the road and landing in a ditch near Fairview and Bluff roads in the Center Grove area about 3 p.m. His grandchildren, Jacob Boyd, 10, and Jordan Boyd, 8, were not injured.  The accident shut down traffic on Fairview Road for hours Wednesday.  Johnson County Sheriff's Office investigators believe Boyd might have suffered a medical emergency based on the accounts of witnesses, Chief Deputy Doug Cox said.  They don't know whether he died as a result of a medical emergency, because of the crash or from drowning after the cab filled with water when he was trapped inside, he said.  The results of the autopsy won't be known until a laboratory processes tissue samples, Johnson County Coroner Dave Lutz said.

         Boyd was from Troy, Ill., about 20 mile east of St. Louis. He had picked up the boys, who live in the Center Grove area with their mother, and was taking them to visit their father in the St. Louis area, Lutz said.  The boys attend Pleasant Grove Elementary School. The father of another Pleasant Grove student, William Foote, was following the Boyds when the pickup drifted off the road and hit a guardrail.  The impact with the guardrail sheared off the right front tire and caused the truck to roll over into a rainwater-swollen ditch.  Foote stopped and ran into the waist-deep water toward the upside-down truck, pulling the boys out of the back seat as the cab filled with water. He struggled with the crumpled front doors but was unable to get Boyd out.  Firefighters had to saw at the crushed cab for 10 minutes before they could free the man.  Pleasant Grove Elementary School Principal Trael Kelly said Foote was a hero.  "It takes courage and inner fortitude to risk one's own well-being to come to the aid of another," he said. "Know that we are proud of you and thankful of your daring effort. The literal meaning of the word hero is guardian, protector or defender. Your efforts are nothing short of this literal definition."  His action to protect the Boyd children not only made a difference in their lives but in the lives of their family and friends, Kelly said.  Kelly wrote him a letter of gratitude on school letterhead and said the school will provide grief counseling and other assistance to the Boyd family.  See a related story HERE.  (Reprinted with permission from the Daily Journal)
 
    

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