The Enid News and Eagle, Enid, OK

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August 31, 2009

Boy hit by SUV returns home

By Cass Rains, Staff Writer

A 2-year-old boy run over Friday morning has returned home with both legs in a cast and is slowly improving, his mother says.

Kyler Cates was run over by a 2003 Ford Expedition about 7:20 a.m. Friday at Crosslin Park as he ran in front of the SUV driven by 25-year-old Ashley D. Hart.

The boy’s mother, Nicole Cates, said her son is improving, but his injuries will require he wear a cast for several weeks and then go through physical therapy.

“Every day he keeps getting a little bit better,” Cates said. “He still has some trouble sleeping. He’s doing OK right now. He has his moments. He’s frustrated because everything he used to be able to do he can’t do any more.”

She said her son had been put in a “body cast,” which only allows him to move his arms and comes up to the boy’s chest. She said her son will have to re-learn everything once the cast is able to come off.

“We’re hoping the physical therapy will go good and he will be able to learn to walk again,” Cates said. “I hope to have him walking by Halloween so he can go trick-or-treating.”

According to an Enid Police Depart-ment report, Cates told police she was in the parking lot at Crosslin Park, where parents drop off their kids to catch a bus to Kremlin-Hillsdale Public Schools, to drop her daughter off for the bus.

She said her husband was escorting their daughter to the bus when the boy ran toward her husband and was struck and run over by Hart. Kyler’s parents then drove him to Integris Bass Baptist Health Center.

According to the report, Hart said she was lined up in the parking lot to park and stopped for the vehicle in front of her, then moved forward when the other vehicle did. Hart said she felt a bump after moving forward, and thought she had run over a backpack. She contacted her husband, telling him what happened, and they went to the hospital.

Sgt. Quent Tubbs said the incident remains under investigation and expects the findings to be forwarded to the district attorney’s office this week.

He said Hart was driving with a suspended license.

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