Child dies after he chokes on his toy

Dustin McClure

A six-year-old Mountain Home child died in the early hours of Monday morning as a result of complications stemming from his choking on a toy part a little over a week ago.

Dustin McClure, a first-grade student at West Elementary School, died at about 2 a.m. after his family made the difficult decision to withdraw life support from their son, who had suffered massive brain damage as a result of insufficient oxygen reaching his brain.

McClure had been playing with a Christmas gift, a Spiderman toy rated for children three years of age or older, that had a small dart-like object that it shot. At the end of the dart was a suction cup.

According to his father, Jason McClure, Dustin went into the kitchen at the family home, and apparently swallowed the suction cup part, which became tightly lodged in his throat behind his tonsils.

When he came out of the kitchen he was gasping for breath, grabbing his throat, and crying for his mother, Trinity McClure, to help him.

"My wife did everything possible, everything she knew to do," said Jason. She tried the Heimlich maneuver, did CPR, and called 911.

When the ambulance crews arrived they realized quickly there was little they could do there. They picked him up and ran with him to the ambulance, transporting him to Elmore Medical Center.

Doctors there had difficulty removing the obstruction, Jason said, but managed to put in a breathing tube. Then Dustin was put in an air ambulance and sent to St. Luke's Regional Medical Center in Boise.

Bad weather that day, however, forced the helicopter to land early, and the journey was concluded by land ambulance, where doctors at St. Luke's continued to work to revive the child.

But it was too late. By the time the first set of doctors had inserted the breathing tube Dustin had gone too long without oxygen to his brain, which suffered permanent and massive damage.

"The EMTs said it was five minutes, some of the doctors said it was 20-30 minutes, I don't know," how long his son was without oxygen, Jason said. "But it was too long."

Jason, who was in the final months of completing a prison sentence at the Cottonwood correctional facility in north Idaho, received permission from Judge Wetherell to be temporarily released long enough to go to his son.

For a week, the family hovered over their child who was on full life support at the hospital, praying for a miracle.

Finally, last weekend, they accepted the inevitable.

"We could have sat there for another three months, it wouldn't have made any difference," Jason said. "His brain was gone. It had such severe damage it couldn't heal itself. He'd have been a vegetable."

The couple made the difficult decision Saturday to remove the life support, but waited a day before giving final permission to the doctors. "We figured we'd wait until Sunday night and let God do his thing," Jason said.

"There was so much prayer out there," for their son, "that we wanted people to have a chance to go to church Sunday and pray for him." The couple are members of the local Church of the Nazarene.

Finally, at 7:15 p.m. Sunday night, doctors removed the life support systems and a little less than seven hours later the McClure's child, second-youngest of four children, died peacefully in his sleep.

Besides his parents, he leaves an 11-year-old brother, an 8-year-old sister, and a 2-year-old brother to mourn him, along with his grandparents and many other relatives and friends (See his obituary on Page A-6).

His voice filled with emotion, Jason said his son was a typically active 6-year-old who enjoyed playing with his friends, and his video games, but who always thought of others first.

"He was the kind of kid who, if he had four friends over at the table and there was only one bowl of cereal to go around, he'd split that bowl up four ways for his friends and go hungry himself."

When he lost two teeth this year, "he gave his tooth fairy money to his brothers and sister."

The loss has been understandably painful. "Right now, I guess I have to be the strong one," Jason said. "My family is the type that if they see an animal that's been killed on the road they cry. I have to be strong for them now. But when this is all over, I'm going to need some quiet time to myself."

Because Jason has a limited amount of furlough time from Cottonwood, the family has had to rush the arrangements.

An open casket viewing will be held today, Wednesday, Jan. 23, from 3 p.m. until the 6:30 p.m. funeral service at Rost Funeral Home, McMurtrey Chapel. A private family cremation service will be held Thursday.

The medical and funeral costs have been extensive. A donation account to help the family out has been set up in the name of Dustin McClure at all area US Bank branches.