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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A 9-year-old Idaho girl has died after falling out of a tree and getting impaled in the head by a steel bar, her family said Friday.
Shaylyn Bergeson was playing in her backyard Monday near the city of Rexburg when she fell, Fremont County Sheriff Len Humphries said. Officers found the girl unconscious under a tree near the family's home after a piece of steel poking out of the ground impaled her. The girl was airlifted a hospital in Utah, where she underwent surgery.
Shaylyn died Thursday evening at a hospital in Utah, said her mother Jesi Bergeson.
Bergeson said the energetic little girl loved to jump rope and do gymnastics. She joked to her parents that her talents would take them to jump rope competitions around the world one day. Shaylyn also loved arts and crafts, especially projects involving glitter, Bergeson said. They recently banned glitter from the house, she joked.
Shaylyn was a very active child, she added, who enjoyed riding her first mountain bike on country roads and climbing up trees.
"She loved everything and everyone," Bergeson said. "She's had more positive life experiences than some people do in 80 years of living."
Bergeson said she and Shaylyn had spoken a few months ago about organ donation. Shaylyn told her mother that she wanted to donate her organs if she ever passed away.
When she died Thursday evening, Bergeson said they donated her liver, kidneys, heart valves and other body parts to patients in need.
"It just speaks to her giving nature," she said.
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