Corporal Madonna Saunderson Media Relations, North District, Communication Services Royal Canadian Mounted Police said, “I can confirm that Burns Lake RCMP responded to a report of a pedestrian involved collision on Beatty Road in the community.”
The crash occurred on Aug. 21 and was reported at 12:48 p.m.
“A child on a bicycle was struck by a vehicle and taken to hospital with life threatening injuries,” Saunderson said.
The young boy is Jair and he has been flown to BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver to have surgery, and has survived against all odds. According to the Go-Fund-Me page, he is a strong outdoors boy, loves biking, hiking, boating and fishing.
There is an account set up at the Bulkley Valley Credit Union, Burns Lake branch and a Go-Fund Me account has been organized to raise money for Jair and his family. There has been 83 donations and so far, $11,530 has been raised from it.
Stephanie Keeler has organized this fundraiser. Also, an account has been set up at the Burns Lake Recycle Depot.
According to Go-Fund Me page, an update was given by Jair’s mother, “There’s just so many things going on right now but nothing at the same time. In time we will know more, we just have to wait and see what his body/brain can tell us. It’s incredibly hard sitting here looking at my baby not knowing. We just talked to the neuron surgeon, his scans show severe damage to both sides of his brain, with much more damage on his right side. Blood supply to both sides of his brain is compromised. The swelling has not yet started to go down and typically it should have started going down but every injury handles differently person to person. So, they are going to give it some time. He has a fracture pinching one of his blood supplies leaving his brain but they have to put some serious thought in how they handle it. With the severity of everything they really don’t know what recovery is going to look like and they can’t rule out if he’s brain dead yet, but they are trying to be optimistic. His other injuries are not life altering like the one to brain. So, I won’t worry anyone with those, the rest of his body will be ok from what we can tell right now. That’s all we know for now. They just keep saying with time we will know more. My heart hurts. I really just want him to be ok.”
On Sept. 23 Burns Lake businesses plan on a shop local event to fundraise for the family. Paul Hilliard owner of Woods n Water said, “As a business community, we want to help so we are planning a one day shopping event locally to raise money for them.”
According to Saunderson, the investigation is still ongoing and there are no further details available at this time.
This story was written on Aug. 25 and updated as much as possible before going to press.