Friends and admirers of 17-year-old Carter Navarrete are struggling with grief after hearing of the Sooke teen’s death in a Friday night car crash.

“You don’t want to really believe it has happened but it really has happened,” said 17-year-old Jamie Blakeborough, a friend of Navarrete’s through Journey Middle School and most of Edward Milne Secondary School.

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“All I can think of is just recovery time, getting together with friends, talking about what really has happened and taking some time to process it,” said Blakeborough. “It’s just that process now, we all have to talk and be there with one another.”

He and others identified Navarrete as the teen killed on Friday night when the car in which he was a passenger left the pavement of Sooke Road near Parkland Road.

RCMP said the vehicle, a red Acura, flipped and came to rest upside down in a wooded area.

The male driver was found outside the vehicle and transported to hospital with serious but non-life threatening injuries.

But the passenger, who friends later identified as Navarrete, was trapped inside. Despite efforts of paramedics and firefighters to save his life he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Navarrete was a talented hockey player, a member of the Sooke Thunderbirds, who wanted to continue with hockey and appeared to be aiming for a high-level of junior next, said Blakeborough.

He said he first met Navarrete in middle school and the two went to Edward Milne together until Grade 12 when Navarrete switched to Belmont Secondary.

But when it came time for grad and the prom, Navarrete returned to Edward Milne.

“He was with us all through middle school and most of high school except the last year,” said Blakeborough. “So when it came time for the prom it just felt right for him to be there.”

That was the last time Blakeborough saw his friend.

“He was just a great guy,” he said. “You ask for any favour and he would go further to help than you ever wanted.”

Blakeborough’s mother, Beatrice Doniecki, said she remembers Navarrete as a boy and a teenager who was in her home many times with her son and other pals, over the years.

Doniecki also remembers him as a student whom she taught at Edward Milne, the last time in Grade 11 math.

She said he was enrolled in the hockey academy at school. He was a talented athlete and a solid, well-liked youth, she said. “I knew him over the years as he and the other boys grew up with my son through school,” she said. “It’s a sad, sad moment.”

rwatts@timescolonist.com