WEST BEND -- Plans to visit a friend before work turned into tragedy for a West Bend teen.
Ryan Yauck, 18, was headed to a friend's house when he ran out of gas on Highway 45 North, near Chestnut Street. While he was filling up his tank, he was struck and killed by a van.
Ryan's death has sent shockwaves through West Bend East and West High Schools. Ryan was supposed to graduate in just a few months. Now, his friends are trying to make sure his memory lives on.
They gathered in grief - writing messages on a cross that they plan to put on the side of Highway 45 - where Ryan Yauck died. His best friend, Samantha Parkison, shared what she'll most.
"His smile, his personality, everything about him," she says in tears.
Ryan was on his way to see her on Monday, when his life was cut tragically short.
"He was actually heading to my house to hang out before work," she says. "But he ran out of gas, and he called me asking if I had a gas can I could bring him, but I didn't have one."
She never expected to get a call from his sister, saying Ryan had been hit and killed by a car.
"The last thing he said to me, was that he'd see me later," she remembers. "That was it. I said bye. I didn't even get to hug him or anything."
Samantha and Ryan had just been accepted to UW-Milwaukee, and couldn't wait to be there together next year.
"I'm going to still try to go to UWM for him," she says. "Make him proud. I know that's what he would want me to do."
Samantha, and all his friends, are learning at far too young of an age just how fragile life is.
"Just cherish every moment you have with anyone who's close with you, because next thing you know, they could be gone," she says.
A balloon release in Ryan's honor will be held at West Bend's Riverside Park, at 3 p.m. this Sunday.
Investigators say the driver of the van - a 34-year-old Palmyra man - is being cooperative. But they want to talk to witnesses of the crash. If you have any information, you are urged to call the Washington County Sheriff's Office at 262-335-4420
