Details revealed surrounding teen's suffocation death inside van
CINCINNATI (KABC) -- New details have been revealed about how a teen suffocated to death after becoming trapped inside a van in a Cincinnati school parking lot.
Kyle Plush, 16, was trapped inside a Honda Odyssey in the parking lot of Seven Hills school, where he attends.
"My son never came home from school, and we thought he was at a tennis match," Kyle's mother Jill is heard telling a dispatcher. "We don't know where he is."
MORE: "Tell my mom I love her," dying teen tells 911
According to prosecutors, Kyle was found asphyxiated in the third row of his van Tuesday. His body was discovered six hours later, even though he was able to dial 911 multiple times.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that Kyle was kneeling on the third seat, trying to get tennis equipment from the back, when according to a law enforcement source, the seat flipped over onto the floor of the cargo area, trapping him upside down.
Despite being trapped, Kyle managed to call 911 at 3:14 p.m.
The call got disconnected, but a few minutes later, Plush managed to dial 911 again, providing the make and model of his car to the operator.
The teenager can be heard gasping for help and saying "tell my mom I love her."
By then, responding officers had traced the GPS coordinates from his phone to the parking lot. They were just feet away from the Honda Odyssey but didn't know it because the second 911 operator did not pass on the information Plush provided.
The officers eventually left the scene without finding anything.
That 911 operator has been suspended.
"This young man was crying out for help. We weren't able to get that information out to the officers on the scene and we need to find out why," said Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac.
Kyle's father is the one who found his son hours later, suffocated inside that Honda Odyssey. Authorities in Cincinnati are demanding a review of the 911 system, and the county prosecutor is launching an investigation into what went wrong.
