BLOOMINGTON -- A 10-year-old Bloomington boy hit by a semitrailer truck while riding his bike Tuesday died of severe head injuries, the McLean County coroner said Wednesday.

Travell Arrington, of the 1700 block of Illinois St., was hit before 2 p.m. as the truck tried to turn into a truck stop parking lot along Brown Street on the city's west side.

Preliminary findings of Wednesday's autopsy indicate Arrington died "as a result of severe head injuries due to being crushed by a tire" of the truck, Coroner Beth Kimmerling said in a statement.

What happened

Chuck Simmons of Normal, who saw the accident about 2 p.m., said two boys on bikes were coming from the opposite direction and trying to beat the semi, which was turning off of Brown into the Pilot Oil Travel Center, 1520 W. Market St. The second boy was not injured.

"There was nothing he (the driver) could've done," Simmons told The Pantagraph at the scene. "I saw him hit the brakes and jump out of the truck and he pretty much collapsed right there."

Bloomington police Lt. Robert Siron said the semi hit the boy head-on. Siron and the Bloomington police accident reconstruction team were working with Kimmerling.

Kimmerling said the family of the boy told her he was riding his bike to the truck stop to pick up something from the convenience store there.

He was pronounced dead at 2:19 p.m. at the scene, Kimmerling said.

Driver 'distraught'

Siron said the driver of the truck, Sergey Ivasyuk, 35, of Elmwood Park, was taken from the scene to the police station for an interview. The law also required that he undergo a blood test after the interviews, Siron added.

"The driver said he never saw them," Siron said. "He is obviously distraught."

The boy's family members, who had gathered at the accident scene, also were visibly shaken by the accident. At one point at the scene, police officers had to physically restrain several family members to keep them from approaching the boy whose body had been covered by a tan blanket.

Later, the boy's uncle, Stepney Bones, spoke on behalf of the boy's family near the family home in the 1700 block of West Illinois Street.

"He was a happy little boy," said Bones of his nephew, who played basketball and football and planned to attend fourth grade this fall at Sheridan Elementary School.

Half a block away from the scene, at Brown's Produce, Kathy Brown said she didn't see the accident but ran out to help. She said she and two other people held back the boy's friends, who were trying to get to him.

"The other kids riding with the boy were pretty hysterical," Brown said. "I told my daughter to get a blanket out of the truck. By the time she got there, she gave the blanket to the officer that had arrived."

Evelyn Young, executive director of the nearby Boys & Girls Club of Bloomington-Normal, knew the boy and had driven by him moments before the accident. She said the boy was among a group of boys riding on five bicycles in the area just before the accident.

The accident drew a crowd of about 40 to 50 people. Bloomington police were assisted with crowd control by officers from Normal and McLean County officers, said Bloomington police spokesman Duane Moss.

A trooper from the Illinois State Police was called to the scene to inspect the semi's mechanical systems.

Marlo Guetersloh, Sharon K. Wolfe, Bridget Flynn and Roger Miller contributed to this report.