10-year-old's death 'a tragic accident'

GUN PLAIN TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) - Counselors were at Starr Elementary School helping students who were struggling with the accidental death of 10-year-old Breanna Button, who would have started fifth grade on Tuesday.

Breanna died late Sunday or early Monday at her family's home on 105th Avenue, northeast of Plainwell, when she became tangled in decorative scarves hanging from a post on her loft-style bed, Allegan County Sheriff's Lt. Scott Matice said.

She went to bed at 11 p.m., and her parents discovered the accident when they went to check on her about 1 a.m., Matice said. "We're not sure if she fell off the bed, or she got up and got tangled," he said.

"It's just a tragic accident," Matice said.

She was known to family as Bre-Bre and to classmates as the "Peace Girl" because of the tie-dyed shirts and peace signs she wore to school, according to her obituary through Life Story Funeral Home in Plainwell.

Deaths of children involving bunk beds are rare, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Between 2005 and the first of this year, only one incident was reported. That July 2008 case involved a 2-year-old girl. Thirty children were reported injured last year in accidents involving bunk beds, but none of those were serious.

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Visitation is 3 to 7 p.m. Friday and services are at 11 a.m. Saturday at the funeral home, 120 S. Woodhams in Plainwell.

Breanna is survived by her parents, Brian and Jennifer Button; her brothers, Erik Hileski and Hunter Button; grandparents Diane Campbell of Kalamazoo, Andy Campbell of Otsego, Harris and Gloria Button of Wayland; and great-grandparents Fred and Gilda Campbell of Otsego.

For more on Breanna's life story, go to www.lifestorynet.com