A two-year-old boy who was discovered following the Highland Park shooting alone, covered in blood, and taken from beneath his father is now an orphan because both of his parents perished in the assault.
After being split off from them during the commotion of Monday’s shooting, Aiden McCarthy lost both his parents, Kevin and Irina McCarthy. Aiden was unhurt and is now in his grandparents’ custody.
To assist Aiden’s family with “raising, caring for, and supporting” him, a GoFundMe campaign was created. By Tuesday evening at 6 p.m. EST, the account had raised more than $454,000.
A 21-year-old shooter used an AR-15-style weapon to open fire on the Independence Day celebration, leaving at least seven people dead and scores more hurt. GoFundMe organizer Irina Colon claimed that throughout the horrible shooting, strangers kept Aiden safe. “Under horrific circumstances, we transported him to safety, banded together to find his grandparents, and prayed for the safety of his family,” she wrote.
The North Shore neighborhood came together to support a boy about whom we knew nothing. Sadly, I must reveal his name… Aiden McCarthy still requires our assistance. She continued, “Aiden is left in the unimaginable situation of having to grow up without his parents. Despite being in the custody of his grandparents, Misha and Nina Levberg, according to Colon, Aiden still has a long way to go before he can “heal, find stability, and ultimately navigate life as an orphan. After hearing gunshots while their route to breakfast at Walker Bros restaurant, Lauren Silva, 38, of Deerfield, and her boyfriend went in search of Aiden.
Silva told the Daily Beast that they left a garage a few blocks from the shooting just as the gunfire started to take place.
“We were just opening the door to walk up the stairs when we heard it…boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,” she said to the Beast. And it sounded as though someone was banging on the glass doors.
Silva and her boyfriend, together with his son, started racing in the direction of the injured people when all of a sudden, her boyfriend shoved the young child into her arms. She has said that the Beast, “My lover gave me this tiny boy and claimed he was below this father who was shot in the leg.” “I brought the youngster downstairs into the garage,” I said. “They were attempting to stop the bleeding.”
Once inside the garage, she was able to wash the blood from him and clean up his cuts. She claimed he was only wearing one shoe and had blood all over his sock.
He continued asking if his parents would be returning soon, she claimed.
After 20 minutes, Silva came back out of the parking garage to check on the father. She gave Aiden to a family with whom she was holed up in the garage; they took him to the hospital and eventually gave him to the authorities. He eventually got to see his grandparents again.
According to a source Dana Ruder Ring, who was looking after the infant until 8 p.m., shared the boy’s original photo online to aid in his identification.
The mother of two Silva said she treasures the memory of the “kid’s face, his touch, and the sound of his voice.”
She remarked, “I feel like I want to hold on to, like, a tiny bit of feeling that I feel—telling that youngster that his dad was going to come back.”
