MONROE — Weeks before his third birthday, a Monroe boy slipped away from the watchful eyes of adults Wednesday morning, ran into the street and was hit by a full-size pickup.
The child was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he was in serious condition Wednesday afternoon.
“I’m crossing my fingers and praying that everything will be OK,” family friend and neighbor Luanne Packwood, 34, said.
According to witnesses, the 2-year-old ran into Roosevelt Road just south of Trombley Road and was hit just before 11 a.m. by a passing Ford F-250 truck, Snohomish County sheriff’s spokeswoman Rebecca Hover said.
The boy had been playing on a screened porch one moment, family friend Wanda Hudson said. Before anyone realized, the boy apparently ran off. His family learned of the accident when a stranger knocked on the door with news that a child was hurt, Hudson said.
Rescue crews arrived and found the boy in the street, Snohomish County Fire District 4 Battalion Chief Mike Gatterman said.
They put him on a backboard and raced him to the Monroe airfield, where he was flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
Any time a patient is taken in a helicopter the emergency is considered life-threatening, Gatterman said.
By Wednesday afternoon, the boy was being evaluated for broken bones, Packwood said. The boy’s parents and other relatives were with the child at Harborview.
The hospital listed his condition as serious, spokeswoman Staishy Bostick Siem said, and he remained in intensive care.
Wednesday morning, the truck was headed northbound down a long hill in the 12200 block when the it struck the boy, Hover said.
Detectives with the sheriff’s collision investigation unit were summoned to the accident scene.
The pickup driver, 31, didn’t appear to be driving recklessly or engaged in any improper conduct, Hover said.
The road was shut down for hours while detectives investigated the accident, including skidding the truck down the hill to test its brakes.
The stretch of rural road is notorious, neighbors said.
“That shoulder’s too narrow,” neighbor Mike McEnulty, 65, said.
McEnulty said he’s been run off the road and there have been several accidents in the same area where the boy was hurt.
“It’s a real bad spot,” he said.
Packwood, who said she grew up in the area, used to let her children walk to the Roosevelt Store, a quarter-mile east of Roosevelt Road on Trombley. Not anymore.
“It’s dangerous,” Packwood said.
Drivers need to pay attention and slow down, the mother of six said. You never know what a child may do.
“You just turn your head for two seconds and kids are gone,” Packwood said.
Reporter Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437 or jholtz@heraldnet.com.
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