A 17-year-old boy who died from injuries suffered while riding as a passenger in a vehicle on the Orange (57) Freeway in Anaheim is being remembered as a determined, hardworking student athlete.
The boy was Ethan Hawks of La Habra, according to the coroner’s office.
Hawks played defensive end on the Whittier Christian High School football team this year after a season-ending compound leg fracture in 2015, according to the Orange County Register.
“The Whittier Christian High School community is heavy-hearted today after losing Ethan Hawks to complications from the terrible accident that happened to him this last Saturday,” the high school’s Athletic Director, Rolland Esslingler, wrote in an email to the Register.
Hawks was struck by a 7-to-10-pound piece of metal that crashed through the windshield of his mother’s car about 2:40 p.m. Saturday in a vehicle on the southbound Orange (57) Freeway, south of Katella Avenue, according to the Register.
Paramedics took him to UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange, where he died from his injuries at 5:07 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day, according to the coroner’s office.
A California Highway Patrol dispatcher said the CHP has yet to release a statement about the incident.
—City News Service