Aiden McCarthy, a 2-and-a-half-year-old boy who was orphaned by the mass shooting at the July 4 Highland Park parade on Monday, survived because his father protected him with his body, according to his grandfather.
Kevin McCarthy, 37, died protecting his son, said Michael Levberg, whose daughter Irina, 35, McCarthy’s wife and Aiden’s mother, was also among the seven people killed while watching. the parade.
“He had Aiden under his body when he was shot,” the father-in-law said.
When he picked up his grandson at the Highland Park police station, Levberg said Aiden told him, “Mom and Dad will be here soon.”
Aiden McCarthy, 2 1⁄2 years old, lost both parents in the mass shooting of the July 4 Highland Park parade. His grandfather said his father Kevin McCarthy used his body to protect the child from gunfire.
Aiden’s paternal grandmother, Margo McCarthy, who was helping with the care of the children and had gone with her son and daughter-in-law to the parade, was also injured.
“He was holding Aiden when the shooting started,” his cousin Montgomery Kersten said, and he received a blow to the neck and one ear and it was about his injuries.
Her son was hit by a bullet in the femoral artery and mortally wounded, Kersten said.
“When he fell, Aiden was under his father,” Kersten said. “I’m sure it was God watching over him. The Lord saved Aiden and saved Margo.
“Just a couple of millimeters right,” and Aiden’s grandmother would have suffered a brain injury, she said.
Irina McCarthy, an only child, “was the love of my life,” her father said. “She was everything.”
Born in Russia, she settled in the Chicago area with her immigrant father and mother, Nina Levberg. She worked as a waitress and attended Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire and DePaul University before getting a job in digital marketing in the pharmaceutical industry, her father said.
She said she met her husband Kevin, who worked for a gene therapy startup, through her work in pharmaceuticals.
After the shootings, Aiden was “walking down the street,” his grandfather said. Photos of the little sun boy began to circulate.
“A neighbor passed by, showed me the photo, it was Aiden,” Levberg said. “I picked him up at the police station.”
A GoFundMe page created for the child said: “Aiden will be cared for by his beloved family and will have a long way to go to heal, find stability and finally navigate life as an orphan. He is surrounded by a community of friends and an extended family that will embrace you with love, and all the means available to make sure you have everything you need as you grow.
The online fundraiser said it aims to help “support him and the caregivers who will be tasked with raising, caring for and supporting Aiden as he and his support system embark on this unexpected journey.”
The McCarthy were waiting for the parade and going to see her with Aiden, Levberg said.
“They were crazy about their son,” he said, his voice broken. “They were planning two.”
Kevin McCarthy is also survived by his father Michael and sister Katie, Kersten said.
“We will join forces to support Aiden here,” Kersten said, “and to do our best to help our nation try to prevent these events from happening in the future.”
On Tuesday evening, the couple’s bodies had not yet been handed over to their families.
“We don’t know what to do,” Levberg said.
Jacqueline Sundheim, 63, of Highland Park, a synagogue early childhood education teacher, was also among those killed Monday.
In a letter to members of her synagogue, Rabbi Wendi Geffen of the North Shore Congregation Israel said Sundheim had attended the synagogue all his life and had worked there for decades.
“Jacki’s hard work, kindness and warmth touched us all, from her teaching at the Gates of Learning Preschool to countless guiding among us through the moments of joy and sadness in life, all this with untiring dedication, “Geffen wrote.
Three of the four others who died in the parade massacre were identified Tuesday by Lake County Forensic Officer Jennifer Banek as:
Nicolas Toledo was one of seven people killed in Monday’s shooting in Highland Park.
The name of the seventh person killed has not been made public.
Contributing: Elvia Malagon, Manny Ramos