❒ Benicia teen describes July 1 collision, aftermath

By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter

Beau Darwood is designing an entry in Tuesday’s Summer Fashion Show at the Rellik Tavern. While he’s put together his own looks since middle school, the 15-year-old had never considered entering a fashion show — something that changed this summer.

The show’s organizers, downtown businesses The Rellik and Piccolo, turned the event into a fundraiser for Beau’s friend, Lacey Wilson, one of two teenagers struck by a van July 1 as they crossed Military West at West Second Street. And Beau was there when it happened.

As he describes it, he had just turned away and didn’t see the collision that injured Lacey so badly she remains in intensive care. Listed in critical-but-stable condition, according to her family, she was recently moved from Walnut Creek to a hospital in Oakland.

Also injured was Jordan Hebert, who has been released from the same hospital after being treated for a broken leg.

Benicia resident Bruce Ricketts, 49, was driving the van that struck the pair and has been cited by Benicia police for unsafe speed and failure to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk. Witnesses, including several motorists who were behind Ricketts’s van, said traffic was moving slower than the 35 mph speed limit because the sun’s glare at the time was blinding.

Earlier in the day, Beau Darwood had joined a group of friends, including Lacey. They regularly trek down First Street to the Benicia Farmers Market.

“We walked around, like we usually do,” Beau said. “It’s more a social gathering place. We do this every week.”

In fact, he met up with several of the same friends Thursday for another jaunt to the Farmers Market. The group agreed they need to keep up the tradition.

While at the market July 1, Beau fell into the water at the low end of First Street and went home to change clothes. He rejoined his companions at Frankenburger; they then strolled up First Street to City Park.

“She met my dad and his girlfriend,” Beau recalled. “We stayed at the park a little while.”

Lacey and her friends were in the crosswalk when they walked across Military West. “She was walking backwards,” Beau said.

Then he turned his head, and “that’s when it happened.”

One of Beau’s buddies, Dominic Sears, ran up to him and told him, “Lacey got hit by a car.”

Beau ran. “I saw her there. I went straight to her,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. I kept saying her name.”

When medical responders took over, Beau rushed home to a phone and told his father what had happened to the girl his dad had just met. From another friend, Aurora Rose, Beau got Lacey’s home number and called her family.

“We picked up her mom and went to the hospital,” he said.

Lacey’s mother, Nina Wilson, was shaken as she rode to Walnut Creek with Beau and his father. “It was pretty traumatic.”

They stayed late at the hospital, “until about 2 a.m., I’m guessing,” the teenager said. “I couldn’t do summer school homework. The whole time I was there, I was texting away. Everyone responded. I kept giving them news.”

Beau said he still gets updates from Lacey’s family and passes the information on to her friends. And he still makes trips to the hospital, taking friends with him and dropping off gifts.

They’d been talking about fundraisers for Lacey, and once he heard about the fashion show at The Rellik, he decided to participate.

Beau said he may not be a fashion designer, but he cultivated looks for himself while in middle school. “It’s been a while,” he said.

What constitutes a “look”? “Scarf, gloves, hat, cane and leather jacket,” he said. But he won’t be the model Tuesday, even though some of his friends have urged him to sport the look he creates.

His hair is longer than it was in middle school, he explained. Looking up through his brown, wavy locks, he said wryly, “This isn’t one to wear a hat.”

The look Beau concocts will debut at the fashion show that starts at 8 p.m. Tuesday at The Rellik, 726 First St., where donations, a silent auction and raffle as well as direct contributions for Lacey will be accepted all day.

In addition, Rellik partners Tom Hamilton and Delando Pegan said 20 percent of the tavern’s proceeds for the whole day will be donated to Lacey. Fashion show participants also are contributing.

Beau said he has been in Benicia a few years longer than Lacey, whose family moved here about a year ago from Vallejo. A former resident of San Francisco, he said he’d expected the new girl would gravitate toward those who wear “saggy pants and have a bad ghetto accent.”

To his surprise, he discovered, “She has character. She’s not afraid. She’s happy to talk. I’ve never once seen her sad or upset. It hurts me that this happened to someone so innocent.”

Only family members get to see Lacey at the hospital. But if Beau could speak directly to her, he’d simply say, “I’m sorry.”

As he recalled the day of the accident, he said, “I should have walked up the street with her. I should have pushed her out of the way and taken it myself.”

And for others, Beau Darwood has a simple request. “All I can say is, just pray,” he said thoughtfully. “Atheist or not, just pray.”

HELP OUT:
Contributors may donate to Lacey’s medical fund at any Wells Fargo bank, Account No. 1814644546.