Tragedy in my former parish

Dylan Thomas, young boy tragically killed in Baker City, Oregon

I ask for your prayers today for a young boy and his family who hails from Baker City, Oregon, my former parish. The town celebrates annually what is called the Miners Jubilee on a weekend in July. It's a weekend of fun, music, dancing, food, rodeos and a big Parade that is the highlight of the weekend. It celebrates the years when miners arrived in Eastern Oregon as they dug for gold, leaving them pretty happy with the amount of gold that was discovered in rivers and other secret locations. The young boy is Dylan Thomas, 7 years old, and he was standing on the YMCA float, one of the popular floats, a flat-bed truck similar to the one in the photo I took back in 2007. 

Flat-bed truck/float in 2007, similar to the one Dylan was riding on.

Accidentally the boy fell of the truck and run over by the back wheels of the same truck. The boy was rushed to the hospital and died soon afterwards. The Parade was just starting when the accident happened, and many people were witnesses to this tragedy. Baker City is a town of 10,000 people and like many small towns, everybody knows everybody, and as expected the support for Dylan's family was overwhelming. I served as pastor at the Baker City Cathedral for 8 years between 2005 and 2013. All families are close-knit and are very active in sports, ranching, farming and collaborate every year to make the Miners Jubilee a great event. We pray for Dylan and his family, who will be buried later on today in a Memorial Service at the Baker City Christian Church.