Matthew Dushenko was a 3-year-old “full of joy” who loved his older brother, the boy’s mother said at his funeral Tuesday.
Mourners filed into Sts. Peter and Paul Ukranian Orthodox Church in Palos Park to pay their last respects to the boy, who died July 16 after a South Holland man, allegedly driving drunk and at speeds of more than 100 mph, struck the vehicle the boy and his family were in at an Oak Lawn intersection.
“He loved to play with kids and loved his older brother and liked looking out for him,” according to his mother, Tetiana Dushenko, of Burbank.
He liked playing with dinosaurs and with children at a day care center, she attended, she said.
Dushenko and her husband, Serhii, were with Matthew and their son Daniel when the crash occurred.
She was driving a minivan and Serhii was in the front passenger seat, while their two sons were in the rear, with Matthew strapped into a car seat, according to the Rev. Vasyl Sendeha, pastor of Sts Peter and Paul.
He said Daniel, 6, was not injured, his mother suffered cuts from glass and Serhii had severe injuries to his left leg. The father had a walking boot on and used a walker, sitting in a pew of the church next to his wife during visitation Tuesday and the funeral Mass, which was said and sung in Ukrainian.
Matthew died at Advocate Children’s Hospital following the crash at the intersection of 95th Street and Ridgeland Avenue.
His father had to be extricated from the minivan and was taken in critical condition to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, according to police.
Paul Sutton, 43, was driving a Jeep Cherokee at speeds of more than 100 mph when driving west on 95th Street, striking the passenger side of the van the Dushenko family was in, according to police.
Sutton, partially ejected through his vehicle’s windshield, needed to be extricated by Oak Lawn firefighters and was taken in critical condition to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, according to police.
Police said Sutton was driving with a blood alcohol content of 0.196%, or more than twice the legal limit in Illinois, and that an open bottle of alcohol was found in the Jeep.
The Cook County state’s attorney’s office approved felony charges against Sutton including aggravated driving under the influence causing death, according to police.
Sutton is being held at Cook County Jail and would need to post $500,000 in order to be released, and is scheduled to appear in the Bridgeview courthouse Aug. 15.
mnolan@tribpub.com
