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Grief engulfs two more teens' families

A 16-year-old driver hits a 15-year-old on a bike, killing him, the Sheriff’s Office says. Three teens have died in 11 days.

By S.I. ROSENBAUM
Published October 19, 2006

[Times photos: Skip O'Rourke]

Authorities are investigating an accident involving two East Bay High School teens. On Wednesday morning, investigators say, Andrew Leight was driving south on Bullfrog Creek Road, a two-lane road in Gibsonton, when he tried to pass another car ahead of him and struck Fredrick Gardner's bicycle, killing him.

	Relatives of the teen, above, were overcome with grief at the scene. Fredrick Gardner, right, had just turned 15 and celebrated at a pool part in Brandon.

GIBSONTON — The morning he died, Fredrick Gardner spent half an hour in the bathroom — “primping,” his mother said.

The 15-year-old spent so long in front of the mirror that he missed the bus. So he set out for school on his bicycle.
Less than a mile away, Andrew Leight, 16, left for school in his father’s boat-repair truck. He’d had his license for a little over a month.

Before 7:20 a.m. Wednesday, Fredrick was dead. Andrew was inconsolable. Two families were plunged into shock and grief when Andrew’s truck clipped Fredrick’s bicycle.

Fredrick was the fifth person in 11 days — including two other  teenagers and a 10-year-old girl — to die in a crash in eastern Hillsborough County. All of the teens died in accidents involving teenage drivers.

On Oct. 8, a Jeep full of teens collided with a new median in Bloomingdale, killing 17-year-old driver Tyler Clark and injuring seven passengers. And on Friday,   Callie Lynn Roberts, 16, died in Ruskin in a car driven by an 18-year-old friend.

On Oct. 9, Ismelys Regalado, 10, died in a two-car crash on Shell Point Road.

Mark Tucker, a traffic homicide detective with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, said his agency was at a loss to explain the rash of deaths.

“I wish we knew,” he said.

On Wednesday morning, Andrew Leight was driving south on Bullfrog Creek Road, a two-lane country road in Gibsonton, when he tried to pass another car ahead of him, the Sheriff’s Office said. He hit Fredrick Gardner’s bicycle, throwing him from the bike and killing him, investigators said. Andrew hit the brakes and skidded 280 feet.

One of Andrew’s neighbors described him as a polite, quiet boy — a “homebody.”

“That’s a good kid,” said Dempsie Briggs Holleran, who lives two doors down from the Leights. “… That  boy is a very cautious driver.”

Holleran’s younger son, Dennis, 12, looked up at his mother, Dana Roden, and said, “Mom, Andrew’s never going to be the same.”

At East Bay High School, which both Fredrick and Andrew attended, grief counselors talked to Fredrick’s friends and teachers. They also talked to students from Eisenhower Middle School, where Fredrick had been a student until recently.

Counselor Patrick Canavan said the students were told Fredrick had died in a crash — but not that another student had been involved.

He said he had spoken to Andrew’s teachers privately, and suggested they tell students that Andrew had been in an accident “and that they need to respect his privacy.”

From her front door, Andrew’s mother said her family wasn’t ready to speak about the accident. “This is just devastating,” she said.

But she added, “I still have my son. That other mother ... ”

She shook her head, tears filling her eyes.

Darling Calhoun, Fredrick’s mother, arrived at the crash site a little after 9 a.m. Wednesday.

She doubled over. Sobs muscled their way out of her: “Oh God,” she cried. “My baby.”

Relatives held her, helped her into a van.

A few hours later, surrounded by family in front of her mother’s mobile home in Gibsonton, she held her head high as she recalled her son.

He had turned 15 just the day before. She’d had a pool party for him at her home in Brandon, and his friends had tossed him into the water.

He was a funny, popular boy, she said. He had been held back in school last year, but had worked so hard that he was one of two students chosen out of 23 to be “upgraded” back to his age group at East Bay High.

He was so proud, she recalled. And so was she.

Car crashes are the leading cause of death for 15- to 20-year-olds. In 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available, 3,620 drivers in that age group were killed and nearly 100 times as many were injured, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In that year, 13 percent of all drivers in fatal crashes were between 15 and 20.

At the Gibsonton crash site Wednesday afternoon, private investigator Eric Wahl took photos and measured skid marks. He said he was employed by a Clearwater lawyer, Erik Abrahamson, who had been contacted by Fredrick’s mother.

Yet Wednesday night,  she said she had no ill will toward the Leight family.

“I have no harmful words for them,” she said.

S.I. Rosenbaum can be reached at srosenbaum@sptimes.com or (813) 661-2442. Times staff writers Saundra Amrhein and Ben Montgomery contributed to this report.

[Last modified October 22, 2006, 13:57:08]