HOUSTON—A county commissioner wants to know whether a heavy piece of driftwood that killed a 3-year-old boy was placed on a sand dune by Mother Nature or by other means.
Commissioner Patrick Doyle said Friday he asked the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office to provide information related to an accident that killed LaShaun Rae Lovejoy Huff, 3, of Anahuac, at 3:30 p.m. Thursday.
The driftwood log shifted and began rolling down a sand dune as Huff and family members were walking along the beach near Monkhouse Road. The log, described as about 39 feet in length, three feet in diameter, and weighing several hundred pounds, rolled about four feet down the dune before striking LaShaun, officials said.
“I’m trying to find out what’s the situation surrounding the death — what was in the investigative report,” Doyle said. “I haven’t heard anything yet.”
Sheriff’s deputies said they believe the disturbance of the sand in front of and beneath the log may have caused it to shift, rolling seaward and striking the child.
Emergency crews used four-wheel drive vehicles to push the log far enough for them to reach LaShaun. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
LaShaun’s grandfather, and a 15-year-old sibling, were injured as they tried to stop the log from rolling onto him. The teen was taken to UTMB Emergency Room in Galveston for treatment of non-life threatening injuries.
An autopsy was performed Friday, and Dr. Stephen Pustilnik, Galveston County’s chief medical examiner, ruled LaShaun died of accidental mechanical asphyxia.
Doyle said he’d like to know whether the tide or heavy machinery carried the log to the dune.
“As far as we know, we scrape beaches, picking up seaweed,” Doyle told the Galveston Daily News. “Some we remove, some we push up in the dunes. I don’t know if the log was pushed up in there or how it got there ... I want to know the facts behind that, how it rolled down.”
When asked whether the sheriff’s office would investigate how the log rested on the dune, Tuttoilmondo said the incident wasn’t a criminal matter.
“There’s little doubt it was a very tragic accident,” Tuttoilmondo said. “But how far we go to determine what happened remains to be seen.”
Information from the Galveston Daily News contributed to this report.
