Her friend, Jessalyn Torres, 11, who had been dancing behind her with the Waukesha Xtreme Dance Team, remained in the intensive care unit of a hospital, one of at least a half dozen children in that dancing group to be badly injured at the parade on Sunday evening. One child needed leg surgery, according to relatives, and another had brain trauma injuries. Another child, witnesses said, was found curled up on the street, unconscious.
Jessalyn’s pelvis was broken, her skull fractured and her liver and kidneys lacerated, family members said. Just before she was intubated at the hospital, she asked her family to “tell them to glue my back and everything back together,” her uncle, Ryan Kohnke, said.
On Tuesday evening, the family of Jackson Sparks, 8, said that the brain surgery he had undergone on Sunday after the parade had failed to save him: He was the sixth person — and the only child — to die in the tragedy. “This afternoon, our dear Jackson has sadly succumbed to his injuries and passed away,” Alyssa Albro, the child’s cousin, shared on the family’s GoFundMe page.
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