Kingman 8-year-old dies days after routine procedure

KINGMAN, AZ - A family is desperately seeking answers from an upcoming autopsy report after an 8-year-old Arizona boy died following a routine procedure.

Kaylab Hicks, 8, had his tonsils removed on Jan. 11.

He then died suddenly two days later.

"He was a normal, happy, healthy kid," said Peggy Firth, Kaylab's grandmother.

Firth said her grandson, who lives in Kingman with his father, started feeling ill and had a hard time swallowing the day after the procedure.

Kaylab's father and great-grandmother brought him to the hospital on the 13th.

Firth said her grandson then went home and went to sleep and never woke up.

"They called me and told me that he was in trouble," she said.

Firth described Kaylab as an intelligent and sensitive kid who loved ice cream and cars.

Kaylab was in the second grade and working on fourth-grade math.

He had a younger brother and sister who Firth said he was very close with.

Firth said her family found his 6-year-old brother Damien looking online for ways to bring people back from the dead.

"It's beyond impossible to go on without him," Firth said. "I just don't know how to go on without him."

The family is now awaiting autopsy results and they hope to get those within the next month.

"The...death certificate said 'cause of death: unknown," Firth said. "That's just not acceptable for an 8-year-old."