{"id":170184,"date":"2025-08-23T22:22:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T22:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/170184\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T22:22:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T22:22:19","slug":"community-rallies-around-family-of-4-year-old-boy-killed-in-traffic-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/170184\/","title":{"rendered":"Community rallies around family of 4-year-old boy killed in traffic accident"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PHOENIX \u2014 The Phoenix community is coming together to support a family after the tragic loss of 4-year-old Miguel Dominguez, who was <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc15.com\/traffic\/boy-dies-after-being-hit-by-a-car-near-36th-street-and-mcdowell-road\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">hit and killed by a car while crossing the road at McDowell Road and 36th Street<\/a> earlier this week.<\/p>\n<p>A car wash fundraiser was held in the parking lot of Miguel&#8217;s preschool to help cover funeral costs for the family. The event brought together teachers, parents and community members who wanted to honor Miguel&#8217;s memory and support his grieving family.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s hard for me to talk about it. He&#8217;s been with us for two years,&#8221; said Eileen Buckley, Miguel&#8217;s preschool teacher.<\/p>\n<p>She says her preschool classroom will forever be one student short after losing Miguel on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m going to miss him. Ms. Lee! Ms. Lee! That&#8217;s always how he used to call me not Miss Eileen,&#8221; Buckley said. &#8220;He was a happy, happy kid. He was coming out of his shell, he really was.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A roadside memorial now honors Miguel&#8217;s memory at the intersection where the accident occurred.<\/p>\n<p>The car wash fundraiser was organized by Buckley, parents and community members who felt compelled to help Miguel&#8217;s mother with funeral expenses.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s just something we felt like we had to do, be there for the family,&#8221; Buckley said.<\/p>\n<p>Tamir Fears, a Valley father who helped with the car wash, said the loss has been difficult to process for him and his children, who were Miguel&#8217;s classmates.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They were classmates and they still ask about him every morning. It&#8217;s been a very tough week,&#8221; Fears said.<\/p>\n<p>Both Fears and Buckley are using Miguel&#8217;s story to urge Valley drivers to be more careful behind the wheel.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You may look away for a split second\u2026but that split second can take a kid&#8217;s life,&#8221; Fears said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Pay attention. To the road. Seriously, pay attention. Get off the phone stop with the distractions. You&#8217;re operating a huge vehicle\u2026it could have been avoided,&#8221; Buckley said.<\/p>\n<p>Donations can still be made in person at Magic Star Pre School on Oak and 36th Street.<\/p>\n<p>The driver who hit Miguel did stay on scene. No charges have been filed at this time as police say the investigation is ongoing.<\/p>\n<p>        <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc15.com\/apps\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"100%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1755932053_129_liveplayerbanner1.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX \u2014 The Phoenix community is coming together to support a family after the tragic loss of 4-year-old&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":170185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,1589,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-170184","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-phoenix","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115080419536481302","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}