newsminer.com

FAIRBANKS -- The 4-year-old Fairbanks boy who was struck by an alleged drunken driver in August while riding his Big Wheel on the street died unexpectedly on Monday in a Seattle hospital.

Phillip Lara was playing with his father, Edward, when he went into cardiac arrest at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

“He was sitting in a chair next to the bed playing Legos with me and his heart just stopped,” Edward Lara said Tuesday by cell phone from Seattle.

Doctors tried for an hour and a half to revive the boy, he said.

“We finally asked them to stop so we could say goodbye to him,” Edward Lara said.

Phillip’s death came as a shock. He was scheduled to move into a rehabilitation unit on Monday and start exercises, his father said. Doctors were planning to discharge him in about two weeks.

“He was getting healthier,” Edward Lara said.

But there was more damage done to his heart during the accident than doctors evidently realized.

“It was always a day by day thing with his heart,” Edward Lara said. “They had never seen this kind of damage to someone so young.

“They kept doing echocardiograms and they were showing the aneurysms had gotten a little bit bigger but it was one of those things that they didn’t know what was the best thing to do," he said. “They didn’t want to do any surgery until they saw scar tissue forming.

“It was just one of those things where it’s his time to go home,” Edward Lara said.

Phillip Lara, who turned 5 in the hospital, was injured on Aug. 21 when he was struck by a vehicle as he was riding a Big Wheel down Slater Street in the densely populated Island Homes Subdivision in east Fairbanks.

The boy suffered a fractured skull, broken back, bruised lung and bruised heart in the accident.

The driver of the vehicle, 20-year-old Jessica Paul of Fairbanks, was arrested on drunken driving charges. She also was charged with first-degree assault, repeat minor consuming and minor operating a vehicle after consuming. Paul is in jail at Fairbanks Correctional Center awaiting trial, which is set for the week of Nov. 17.

Assistant district attorney Corinne Vorenkamp said the district attorney’s office is reviewing the charges against Paul in light of Phillip Lara’s death.

Edward Lara said the family plans to have a funeral in Texas, where Phillip will be buried.

“He’s going to be buried in the Texas hill country near family,” the father said.

Neither one of the boy’s grandmothers had ever met him because he was born in Alaska and the family hadn’t visited family Outside since he was born, Edward Lara said.

“This is going to be the only opportunity for them to see him,” he said, his voice cracking.

There will be a memorial mass held in Fairbanks at Sacred Heart Cathedral when the family returns to Alaska, Edward Lara said. He thanked Fairbanks residents for what he called an “amazing amount of support” following the accident. A fund was set up at Denali State Bank to help the family with medical expenses and a fundraiser was also held to raise money, as well as sign cards that were sent to Phillip.

“Just let the community know we appreciate what they’ve done,” Edward Lara said.