The Sad Story of Kyle Plush

The tale of Kyle Plush’s untimely passing is chilling for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it exposes just how deadly freak accidents can be, even in the most unlikely of situations. Secondly, and more predominantly, it was entirely preventable.

Kyle Plush, a 16-year-old high school sophomore, was collecting his tennis gear from the back of his family minivan just before joining friends for a game.

The minivan had three rows of seats, with the tennis gear being behind the third row in the trunk.

Kyle reached over the seat to retrieve his bag, but as he leaned over, the seat flipped backward, upending him and pinning him tightly against the interior of the Honda Odyssey.

It wasn’t as simple as merely flipping himself back to an upright position; Kyle was forcefully trapped upside down, unable to free himself from the seat that held him in place.

Luckily, Kyle was able to use the iPhone’s voice-activated assistant, Siri, to call 911. Despite his dire situation, help was just a phone call away for the distressed teenager.

Desperate and gasping for breath, he managed to let the 911 operator know what had happened, where he was, and describe the vehicle he was in.

In fact, Kyle made two calls to the emergency services. Only help never arrived.

Kyle endured an agonizing experience despite emergency services being made aware of his deadly predicament and the location of the accident.

The story of Kyle Plush exposes how one small mishap can lead to fatal consequences. However, in this instance, those consequences were preventable.

The Tragic Accident

On April 10, 2018, Kyle Plush drove the family minicab to Seven Hills School in Cincinnati, Ohio. The athletic young man loved sports, particularly tennis, and it looked like a perfect day to get on the court.

He pulled up at the high school and decided to quickly retrieve his tennis gear from the back by leaning over the seats.

The family-sized vehicle had three rows, though there was no way Kyle could know the back seat would malfunction as he leaned over it.

It doesn’t sound like an accident that could be fatal, but when the seat collapsed backward on Kyle, it compressed him tightly to the floor of the van.

The weight of the seat proved heavy enough to immobilize the young sportsman, making it so he was firmly wedged in place upside down.

**Image showing the position he was trapped in via Daily Mail.**

The pressure on his torso made it difficult for him to take breaths, though Kyle managed to think quickly and used Siri to call 911 via his voice commands.

“Help, I’m stuck in my van,” he pleads, telling the 911 dispatcher as much information as he could about his predicament and location.

However, Kyle wasn’t close enough to his phone at the time to hear the operator’s replies, so the conversation was mostly one-sided.

Kyle does tell the dispatcher he can’t hear her but pleads for help: “If you don’t send help, I’m gonna die soon.”

The call is cut off after a few minutes, by which point Kyle’s supply of oxygen and ability to breathe are nosediving rapidly.

How The Emergency System Failed Kyle

What Kyle did that day—leaning over the back seats of his car—is something most of us have done at one point or another. He could not have foreseen the freak accident that would have occurred by simply trying to grab his tennis gear.

As his oxygen supply depleted, he no doubt anxiously awaited emergency services arriving to prise the seat off his body and release him from the floor of the car.

What was a terrifying event would eventually become a wild story to tell his kids, but Kyle would never be afforded that opportunity.

After Kyle’s first call to 911 just after 3 p.m., he became more distressed when help didn’t arrive. He knew he didn’t have much time left, so Kyle again called 911 just after 3:30 p.m.

Little did Kyle know that the police had been dispatched to his location after the first call, but not all of the relevant information was provided to the attending officers. The dispatcher left out critical details that could have led to officers finding Kyle.

It’s unclear if she didn’t hear all of the information Kyle gave her or didn’t fully understand what he was telling her, but the miscommunication meant it was a missed opportunity to rescue Kyle.

The attending officers quickly left the scene, though a second call in from Kyle prompted another visit from officers at the Seven Hills parking lot.

They drove around the parking area but left shortly after, unable to find Kyle or his vehicle. The dispatcher hadn’t passed on the make, color, or model of the car they ought to have been looking for.

The officers didn’t get out of their patrol car to scour the area either, meaning two out of Kyle’s two cries for help were mishandled, leading to his unimaginable passing.

Shortly after, Kyle passed from asphyxiation.

In the half-hour he spent trapped, any shouts of help were unheard. It’s unlikely Kyle would have had the ability to shout loud enough for passersby to hear his cries for help, particularly since he struggled to draw breath, let alone yell with any force.

Hours passed, and Kyle lay in the back of his car as the vehicles around him vacated the parking lot, unaware of the sad scene they were driving away from.

Kyle’s father, Ron Plush, became concerned when his son didn’t arrive home late afternoon. Later that night, he drove to Seven Hills School to see if everything was okay.

He found the family minivan parked up and, upon further inspection, discovered his son’s body in the back of the vehicle.

The Plush family would later find out some of Kyle’s heartbreaking final words to 911: “I probably don’t have much time left, so tell my mom that I love her if I die.”

The Impact Of Kyle Plush’s Passing

Jill and Ron Plush were understandably devastated at the senseless loss of their child, and amid the heartache was one big question the family needed answering: why didn’t Kyle get the help he’d asked for?

As Jill later said, Kyle did everything right to seek help after the accident, but those who ought to have saved him failed him. The Plush family sought answers.

An inquiry into the handling of Kyle’s calls to 911 showed that the first call taker never transferred the urgency of the matter to the officers attending the scene.

After all, the distressed call saw Kyle exclaim he was about to die, and you could hear him banging for help. This information wasn’t passed on.

Officers on the scene spent 11 minutes driving around the area but never got out of the car.

The second call from Kyle saw the next dispatcher omit the specific information he gave about his vehicle, meaning the attending officers weren’t clear about what they were looking for.

It later transpired that officers were only 12 parking spots away from Kyle.

The Plush family wanted to make sure this would never happen to another person or another family ever again. They filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the City of Cincinnati the year after the incident.

The Plush’s alleged the city’s negligence caused Kyle’s passing, noting that their emergency response system wasn’t up to standard. This meant dispatchers were unable to hear parts of Kyle’s call, which meant critical information was missed.

Then, the Plush family drew attention to the nonchalant way the police searched the parking lot for Kyle. They were a heartbreakingly short distance away from him as he was trapped in his van mere meters away.

The aim of the lawsuit was to tighten up the emergency response system so an incident so tragic could never take place again.

The Plush family won the lawsuit, receiving $6 million and the promise of improvements within the response system.

Dispatcher training was revised and updated, the technology used was modernized, and the processes for dispatchers relaying information to officers were revamped. This would cost $250,000 and take place over the course of five years.

The Plush family also set up the “Kyle Plush: Answer the Call” foundation to advocate for nationwide emergency response reforms and commemorate his memory.

His mother, Jill, would say of her late son, “Kyle was a person of action and a problem solver. We did this because he would have wanted some type of change so this didn’t happen ever again.”