BEAVER COUNTY, Utah (ABC4) — The mother of Levi Wright, the 3-year-old boy who died after riding his toy tractor into a southern Utah creek, shared details on how her son ended up being swept away in the rushing water.
“Unless you’ve been to my place it’s hard to paint a picture of how something like this can happen,” Kallie Wright wrote on social media.
Levi Wright, the son of rodeo star Spencer Wright, died Saturday after his parents made the decision to take him off life support, which he’d been on for 12 days following the May 21 near-drowning.
Since the accident left the child hospitalized, Kallie Wright has received hurtful messages blaming her for what happened to her son, according to a family spokesperson, Mindy Sue Clark.
“It’s hard to watch internet trolls tear down your best friend for a tragic accident that occurred, to the point where she’s up in the middle of the night writing out a post like this,” Clark said, referring to Kallie Wright’s most recent Facebook update.
In that post, Kallie Wright explained that there’s a creek that runs through the family’s 24-acre property in Beaver County that separates their home from that of the grandparents’ house.
Cutting through that creek, which is dry most of the year, runs a road made of concrete and gravel. Kallie Wright posted a video showing the family crossing the creek while walking the road together on horseback.
“My kids have rode their bikes, driven their ride-on toys and even walked this way a million times,” Kallie Wright wrote. “Water only runs through for a short time during the year and can change overnight.”
She added: “Levi did not do anything he hasn’t done before, but this time the water was at its peak and strong enough to push his tractor off the road into the creek as he drove through.”
The creek was rushing so fast that Levi was swept about a mile downstream. Kallie Wright called 911 as soon as she lost sight of her son, and responding emergency crews found the toddler unconscious. An ambulance rushed the boy to a local hospital before a medical helicopter flew him and his mother to Primary Children’s in Salt Lake City.
Kallie Wright said that Levi asked her if he could ride his tractor, and she told the child that he shouldn’t ride on the road or through the creek.
“As he drove off, I ran back in the house,” she said. “That’s a decision that will haunt me for the rest of my life.”
Clark, the family spokesperson, said that this kind of accident could happen to any parent at any time.
“Now there’s a mom with one less baby to tuck in at night, and people who want to rub salt on that wound,” she wrote. “Those people are a special kind of evil and cruel….To those of you who have been a light, please continue to lift my friends up in prayer.”
The Wright family, who are rodeo royalty in Utah, received an outpouring of support since Levi’s accident. At competitions, young rodeo athletes wore blue in his honor, and a benefit auction was created featuring hundreds of items, from horses to paintings of Levi.
During the time the child was in the hospital, Kallie Wright posted several social media updates documenting the family’s emotional journey.
Days after the near-drowning, there was hope Levi would recover when he briefly woke up from a coma. But brain scans later showed serious brain damage, and attempts to wean him off a breathing tube and sedation were unsuccessful.
After consulting with top medical professionals, doing their own research and “several sleepless nights,” the family made the decision to take Levi off life support.
Kallie Wright wrote that she will lose sleep over what happened for the rest of her life, adding that she learned that it can only take seconds for tragedy to occur.
“I pray anyone who judges me or has hurtful words to say never finds themself on the receiving end of a nightmare like this,” she said.