ORLANDO, Fla. – Classmates, family and friends gathered Tuesday night to remember a Timbercreek High School student who investigators said was killed by a hit-and-run driver.
Florida Highway Patrol investigators say Alec Gomez, 15, was hit by a motorcycle as he rode his skateboard along Avalon Park Boulevard early Saturday morning.
Investigators said the driver of the motorcycle ran off and hid in someone's yard. The driver is hospitalized, while Gomez was killed.
Gomez's friends, AJ and Ben, were with him when the accident happened, and they organized the vigil Tuesday night.
"He would've really enjoyed seeing all of you out here today," one of them said.
"He was always the one that I was hanging out with when I've nothing else to do," said another. "He was always the nicest guy I knew."
Classmates and friends wrote messages to Gomez on index cards and posted them on a blank wall inside the amphitheater in Avalon Park's town center.
Family members wrote their messages to him on balloons, which they set free.
"I was sitting down today to arrange and to think of the words to write for his funeral talk," Gomez's mother, Serena Chapman, said.
She told his friends that he may have only lived 15 years, but he had a wonderful life.
"I want you to make me a promise," she told his friends. "You're going to do the best you can do with your life, and you're going to make it count. Can you promise me that?"
News 6 has been investigating the stretch of roadway on which Gomez was killed. Residents have been complaining that there are not enough streetlights and the area is too dark.
A representative from Orange County told News 6 on Tuesday that the stretch of Avalon Park Boulevard will be getting streetlights but not until next year.