Alcohol, High Speed Suspected In Teens' Crash -- Students Mourn Death Of Eastlake High Senior

SAMMAMISH PLATEAU

Dave Hatfield has heard them before, the parents with heartbreaking voices who talk of tragedies, of teenagers drinking and trying to drive home and sometimes not making it.

Hatfield considers himself lucky. He nearly became one of those parents.

On Saturday night, Hatfield's 15-year-old daughter, Amanda, survived an accident that killed her boyfriend, 17-year-old Guy Kelly.

Amanda Hatfield's friends told her parents that both teens drank at a party that night. Toxicology reports may take four to six weeks, officials say.

Kelly was to have dropped Amanda off at her parents' Redmond home by 11:30 p.m. That's the time, police say, the car he was driving, a 1997 blue Subaru Legacy Outback, veered off the road near the 24800 block of Northeast Eighth Street on the Sammamish Plateau.

It was three miles east of the Hatfield home. The car slammed sideways into a tree on the driver's side, wrapping around the trunk.

Kelly died at the scene, of chest injuries.

It may take several weeks for a complete report on the accident, says King County police Sgt. Tom Smith.

The car split in half when it was removed from the tree, and two tow-trucks were needed to haul it out.

"It's not hard for me to confirm the fact that a lot of speed was involved," Smith said.

Amanda Hatfield was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. She broke several bones and was in satisfactory condition today.

Still, says her mother, Lisa Hatfield, "she has a long road ahead." Amanda Hatfield is scheduled for surgery tomorrow.

As friends streamed into Amanda's hospital room during their lunch break yesterday, filling it with flowers and balloons, other students grieved at Eastlake High School, on the Redmond part of the Plateau, where Hatfield is a sophomore and Kelly was a senior.

Someone placed a photograph of Kelly leaning against a wall and wearing a baseball cap, in the center of a wreath.

A light-blue balloon with the words "We love you" floated above several large sheets of paper with signatures and messages of condolence. Many students pinned on yellow ribbons.

Anna Trumbull, a senior, was among those in the crowd looking at Kelly's photo. She had known him since the eighth grade and dated him when she was a sophomore.

His death is a lesson for her and her friends, Trumbull said: "It makes people realize we're not invincible."

Kelly was a "normal kid" who was good at badminton and loved to play the guitar, his friends and teachers said.

"For me, Guy was one of those kids who would do something just silly, just out of this world," said Dave Davis, a school counselor who had worked with him the past three years.

Kelly had talked about going to Bellevue Community College after graduation, Davis said.

In Matt Plughoff's English class, more than 20 students gathered in a circle. Most had heard that alcohol might have been a factor in the accident.

One student suggested holding an assembly on drinking and driving. Shelby Bottemiller, a senior, and Sara Thompson, a sophomore, had another idea: A list of students to call whenever others need a ride home.

At the scene of the accident, Monique Bayne and her friend, Jaynie Fitzgerald, joined dozens of other students in creating a memorial of flowers and a cross.

"It's hard," Bayne said. "Seventeen years isn't acceptable to die."

Amanda Hatfield's parents said they knew their daughter was going to a party that night, but wish the couple would have called to get a ride home.

"The whole thing could have been avoided with one phone call," Dave Hatfield said.

"I don't know how many times this is going to have to happen," Lisa Hatfield said. "But drinking and driving kills."

Services for Kelly will be at 2 p.m. tomorrow at Mary Queen of Peace Church, 1121 228th Ave. S.E., Issaquah.