The family of 17-year-old high school student Ryan Doedel, who was killed in a car crash last Thursday night, is still trying to come to terms with his death.
Ryan’s dad Peter Doedel said he’s used to hearing his son spend hours making music in the basement after school. Now, the silence is too much to bear.
“We’re hanging on by a thread,” Peter Doedel said. “We’re absolutely floored, confounded, stunned. You know, all those things that hit you up the side of the head with something you never would have expected.”
On Thursday, Ryan Doedel was driving just off Lower Springbank Road on Township Road 242, southwest of Calgary, when his vehicle left the road and rolled before catching fire.
Ryan was pronounced dead at the scene.
READ MORE: High school student dead, another injured in single-vehicle crash west of Calgary
The crash is still under investigation but friends have put up a warning sign near a curve on the rural road where the crash happened in hopes of preventing a nightmare like this from happening again.
Ryan’s dad said he’s been focusing on what made his son so special. He played football for Ernest Manning High School’s team the Calgary Wildcats and had a passion for music.
“On one end he’d have the athletic football type friendships and on the other end, he was a music producer developing,” Doedel said.
Ryan’s friend, 16-year-old Dante Bravi, was a passenger in the vehicle at the time of the crash. He’s still in hospital with a spinal cord injury and is expected to be there for at least three months or longer.
WATCH: A Calgary teen is dead and another in critical condition following a horrific crash west of Calgary. Adam MacVicar reports.
Dante’s dad told Global News his son said he woke up in the back seat of the car after the crash and smelled gasoline, then managed to get out of the car and dial 911.
Students at Ernest Manning High School are wearing ribbons in honour of Ryan; a young man who is being remembered as a leader.
“We’re very, very proud and very, very thankful that he was grasping with that and plowing ahead into,” Doedel said. “Sadly, an adult life he won’t get to enjoy.”
Doedel said his son’s high school football team is having a memorial game for Ryan on Thursday.
GoFundMe pages have been set up in memory of Ryan Doedel and in support for Dante Bravi.
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