Girl struck, condition improving

Gracie Dillow, six-year-old daughter of Brian and Lacy Dillow, Humboldt, suffered broken bones in both arms and a hip when she was struck by a pickup truck near Chanute’s Municipal Auditorium Monday afternoon.
She was taken to Neosho Memorial Regional Medical Center, Chanute, and then transferred to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.
“Gracie should be out of ICU (intensive care) today,” said her father, Humboldt’s chief of police. “They’ve taken the ventilator and other tubes out, she’s breathing on her own, and doing better. The good thing is she didn’t suffer any head trauma.”
In addition to the broken bones, she suffered extensive bruising, including to her lungs, which required fluid being drawn from them, said Dillow.
Jarek Maring, 26, Pittsburg, was driving the truck that struck Gracie when she, her mother and four-year-old sister, Morgan, started to cross a street intersection to go to dance classes in the auditorium.
“Lacy said they all were under an umbrella —  it was raining — and saw the truck about a block away,” he said. “Lacy thought they had plenty of time to cross the street. Gracie was just a foot or two in front of Lacy, still under the umbrella, when she was hit.”
Dillow said a Chanute police officer told him Maring said the windshield of his truck was fogged and he didn’t see the Dillows crossing the street.