A Chisago County family is grieving their 3-year-old boy, who was killed over the weekend when a parked ATV tipped over on top of him.
The tragedy occurred in a matter of minutes after Landon Erickson wandered outside his rural Franconia Township home Sunday afternoon. The little boy was trying to move a child's-size ATV off a slope when it rolled on top of him, the boy's family said.
Landon's death is a severe blow to a family already reeling from loss. On Thursday, they will return to the same Forest Lake funeral home where they mourned Landon's grandfather, who died in a car crash a little more than three months ago.
"It's pretty sad around here," Jerry Dimmen, Landon's great-grandfather, said Monday. "He had a warm heart, was happy and quick to smile."
Dimmen's 52-year-old son, Dean, died Dec. 26 when his car slid off an icy road and hit a telephone pole. Now, Dimmen's granddaughter is coping not just with the loss of her father, but the sudden loss of her young son.
"It's sad," he said. "[She's] having a heck of a time. It's so close to the last one."
The Chisago County Sheriff's Office and Midwest Medical Examiner are investigating Sunday's accident, which was reported just after 4 p.m. just outside Lindstrom, about 45 minutes northeast of the Twin Cities. No one witnessed the incident.
Dimmen said Landon had wandered outside the home, where a child's size four-wheeler that his 7-year-old brother used was parked on a slope. When the toddler tried to pull the ATV off the embankment, it rolled over on top of him.
