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My son was always on the daredevil side of things. I was always telling him to be careful, because he could get hurt. He always laughed and said, "aw dad you worry too much. He was a typical skateboarder. He just didn't think things through sometimes. He was tying a bunch of ropes up in out lost and standing on the vertical access ladder( the only way up to the small loft area. I think he was setting up some ropes from the ceiling beams to horse around with some buddies. He was on the phone with his girl friend at the time and slipped on the ladder and got caught up in the ropes and entangled and was basically strangled. His girl friend called me and said Kyle might have fallen off the ladder becaues the phone went dead, and was busy when she tried to redial it. I was about 8 miles away. I called several nearby people to check on him , but no one was home. I thought he was probably goofing around and just not answering the phone. I drove home fast and got stopped by a cop on the way. I got out and went over and told him that my son may have fallen and I was going to check on him. I still did not think anything was wrong but wanted to make sure. I could have driven faster to get home. When I got home I thought he was sitting on a lower wrung of the ladder, because he was so close to the floor, then I realized that his feet were not touching the floor. I started doing CPR and my brother came and called the ambulance. I live 4 blocks from the police/fire station in a small town. The ambulance got there and took him to the local hospital. They revived his heart and got him breathing a gain and flew him to St.Louis Childrens hospital. He never gained consciousness and they did organ donations 3 days later. They had done a test to see if he was brain dead and we thought he was gone, the 2nd day, but when they did the second test to confirm it 6 hours later, he reacted to the pain stimulous and started breathing again on his own. We thought that this was a good sign and that at least the top dog was finally listening to the literally thousands of prayers being sent his way. So the hope started all over again. The third day he quit breathing on his own and was determined to be brain dead.They pronounced him brain dead a few hours later at 8:30 pm. The doctors kept him alive till the next day at noon, to line up all four organ recipients. We would not let them take him to a different place to harvest the organs, so they had the people fly to that hospital for the transplants. Being with him beside his bed the last night, knowing that they were taking him the next day at noon was gut wrenching, Stacy and I never left his side for 4 days. We had an entourage of about 40 family members that took over the waiting areas. We both come from big families and all live close to one another. My mom still feeds 26 people every Sunday for dinner after church. Thats what full blooded Italian mothers do. We said our final god byes and final hugs in the hall way at the elevator at noon the next day through an incredible amount of tears. After thinking back on everything that happened , I would have a) driven a lot faster to get home, and b) called the local police station first before heading home.They could have had an officer at my house in a minute and a half. But I was not thinking clearly at the time. My biggest regret was not being able to help Kyle sooner. A few minutes could have saved his life. Parents are supposed to be able to keep their children safe and I had failed miserably. I still can't believe this happened in my own home! I am sorry if there are typoes, my vision is blurry any water keeps dripping on the screen as I type this. It is nothing new for me as I go through this thought process, every day of my life.

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Kyle, I love you buddy, Dad

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