Loveland – The mother of one of the teens who died from injuries he sustained in a car accident last week offers a warning: Buckle up, always.
“If the seat belt isn’t buckled, the car doesn’t go forward,” Tami Stillwell said Monday, as friends of her son, Kurtis Soeby, gathered at his home in Loveland.
Soeby, 18, died Saturday from injuries he suffered in a two-car accident near Berthoud on Wednesday.
The wreck also killed Shawntae Taylor, 15, and injured another friend, 16-year-old Brenden McBride, who remained hospitalized Monday with a broken neck and pelvis, and a collapsed lung, friends said.
Soeby was thrown from the Lexus after it collided with a pickup truck. The Lexus ran a stop sign, the Colorado State Patrol said, and none of the teenagers was wearing a seat belt.
The crash was a grim example for the State Patrol’s campaign to urge Coloradans to buckle up, which began only two days before the accident.
Though wearing a seat belt is the law in Colorado, 282 of the 502 people killed in vehicle crashes statewide last year were not buckled in. In Weld County last year, 51 of the 78 traffic fatalities were not wearing seat belts.
“He always buckled up when he was with me,” Soeby’s mother said Sunday, “but I wasn’t always with him when he was out with his friends.”
The 16-year-old driver was only slightly injured in the accident. His name has not been released because he is a minor. The pickup’s driver, Leslie Mechem of Berthoud also was treated for minor injuries.
Soeby and McBride had been friends for years, and McBride was dating Taylor, Stillwell said.
Soeby had just completed his junior year at Berthoud High School and was looking forward to playing football and wrestling next year.
It was rare that Soeby’s twin brother, Kyle, was not at his side. The two brothers had part-time landscaping jobs, but Kurtis recently had surgery on his wrist after a wrestling injury, his mother said. Kyle was working Wednesday.
Jay Parsons, Soeby’s best friend, got the news of the accident by cellphone minutes after the accident. Another friend, Steve Mullin, called to say there had been a terrible accident and Soeby may have been in it.
Parsons said Sunday he would miss Soeby’s easygoing nature and quick wit.
“If he ever acted mad, he was just kidding around,” Parsons said, “or he was over it in five minutes.”
Staff writer Joey Bunch can be reached at 303-820-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com.
