‘Sweet and loving’ 13-year-old dies after tetherball accident at corn maze, family says
A family is mourning their youngest member after he died in a tragic tetherball accident in Utah, reports say.
The 13-year-old boy was helping clean up the family’s corn maze on Friday, Oct. 27 when his relatives noticed he’d been missing awhile and hadn’t rejoined the family, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. The family owns and operates Knights Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch near Richfield, about 135 miles south of Salt Lake City, the outlet reported.
According to the Sevier County Sheriff’s Office, he was found unresponsive with a tetherball rope wrapped around his neck and no pulse, the outlet reported.
Sheriff Nathan Curtis told KTVX/KUCW it appears to have been an accident and there was “no evidence of foul play or suspicious activity,” the station reported.
Paramedics were able to restore the boy’s pulse, and he was rushed to a hospital and later a critical care unit, the station reported.
Knights Corn Maze posted the boy’s obituary to its Facebook page Oct. 31. Maximus Charles Knight died early Saturday morning “surrounded by his family” in the medical facility, the obituary says.
The family described him as a “sweet and loving” kid who brought “so much joy to his family and to his community” in an online fundraiser set up for funeral expenses.
He was his grandmother’s “best helper” and was “thoughtful of other’s feelings,” the family said in the obituary. He loved driving the tractor at the corn maze, riding 4-wheelers, wrestling, and collecting “model tractors, football, baseball and Pokemon cards and rocks of all types and colors” from family outings.
“He was so bright, so beautiful, and a most perfect example of kindness and service to his fellow friends and family,” his family said in the obituary. “He was adventure and risk, he was joy and sweetness, he was tease and laughter, he was bravery and strength. He was love.”
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