Boy, 5, Crushed To Death by Tractor in Freak Accident: Police

A 5-year-old boy in Missouri has died after he fell from a tractor onto a roadway where he was then run over by the same vehicle, according to police.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol (MSHP) stated in a report the incident happened at Apex Lane a half-mile north of Marre Road in Lincoln County on Sunday. The boy from St. Charles, just northwest of St. Louis, was a passenger in the John Deere 8230 tractor—vehicle 1 in the online document.

The report stated: "Vehicle 1 was traveling on a gravel roadway on private property in Lincoln County, Missouri. The door of vehicle 1 [the tractor] was ajar. Passenger 1 was ejected and run over by vehicle 1."

Emergency medical services personnel arrived and pronounced the child dead. The driver of the vehicle was identified in the report as Steven B. Keiser, 59, from Foley, also in Lincoln County, Missouri.

The MHSP later told Newsweek: "We are not seeking any criminal charges."

According to a U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) fact sheet for 2020, of the 38,824 traffic fatalities across the country that year, 1,093 were children aged 14 and younger. It represented 3 percent of all traffic fatalities that year.

Of the 23,824 passenger vehicle occupants killed in 2020 traffic crashes, 755 were children, the DOT stated.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), children in rural areas were at a higher risk of being killed in a vehicle crash between 2015 and 2019.

"Child passenger death rates were highest in the most rural counties (4.5 per 100,000 population) and lowest in the most urban counties (0.9).

"Death rates among children who were not using age-appropriate restraints were highest in the most rural counties (2.9 per 100,000 population) and lowest in the most urban counties (0.5)," said the CDC.

The CDC added that studies indicated children in rural areas were more likely to be incorrectly restrained than those in urban areas.

It added: "A multistate study using data from car seat check events found that child restraint misuse was more common in rural locations (91 percent) than in urban locations (83 percent)."

In the summer of 2022, a 3-year-old girl died in Colorado after her mother accidentally drove a car over her in a driveway.

Colorado State Patrol said the girl was fatally struck by the vehicle at a home close to Colorado Springs on July 31, while the mother was behind the wheel.

Officers found the girl had sustained critical injuries and was taken to a hospital shortly afterward.

According to an incident report obtained by KKTV, the mother had tried to reposition her vehicle when another car drove by, which caused her to brake.

When the mother started to reposition her car again she did not realize the child had run out into the path of the vehicle, police said.

Update 04/18/23, 9:09 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from the Missouri State Highway Patrol.