Tire Explodes, Kills Boy

The Huron County sheriff says an 8-year-old boy was killed when a truck tire exploded while being filled.

It happened Christmas night in Bloomfield Township in Michigan's rural Thumb region, about 10 miles northeast of Bad Axe and about 100 miles north of Detroit.

Sheriff Kelly J. Hanson says 37-year-old Donald Jackson and another man were working on a tractor-trailer tire in a shed on Jackson's property and were putting air in it to try to find a leak when it blew up.

Hanson says the blast struck 8-year-old Kegan D. Jackson, throwing him several feet and knocking him unconscious.

The sheriff says Kegan was taken to Harbor Beach Community Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.