Boy playing on scooter dies after hit by car

WATSON — Hundreds of people lifted candles Tuesday evening in memory of a 6-year-old boy who died Monday night after being hit by a car while playing on his scooter.

The ceremony was held at Live Oak Ballpark, where Tyler Myers had been picked up by helicopter in an unsuccessful rush to save his life just 24 hours earlier.

A neighbor, who was turning into his driveway, ran into the child Monday evening, the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office reported.

The first-grader attended North Live Oak Elementary School, where a team of crisis-intervention counselors tried to comfort his classmates and teachers Tuesday, School Board member Kellee Hennessy Dickerson said.

The counselors tried to explain to the children what happened and gave them a chance to talk about it, Dickerson said.

The little boy “apparently was very vivacious and touched a lot of lives,” Dickerson said. “People were
numb.”

“Tyler was all boy,” said Vicki Picou, grandmother of one of the child’s close friends. “He was always up and down the street on his bike.”

In a statement read to the crowd at the ceremony , the child’s family said, “Tyler was the little sunshine of our lives.”

The accident occurred about 6:30 p.m. Monday in a subdivision across the road from the ballpark, said Lori Steele, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Office.

The child was taken by helicopter to a hospital where he was pronounced dead, Steele said.

The Sheriff’s Office identified the driver of the vehicle that struck the child as Brad Welch, 32, who lives on Rue de Fleur in Watson.

Welch has not been cited in the incident, and the case remains under investigation, Steele said.

The Tyler Myers Fund has been set up at Chase Bank to raise money to cover funeral expenses, said Paeton Burkett, the Denham Springs city attorney.