lamorinda kids -- have you kissed your loved ones today?
Posted on Fri, Aug. 12, 2005
Teen dies in skateboarding crash
By Meera Pal
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
A Miramonte High School graduate died Thursday at John Muir Medical Center following a skateboarding accident near his Orinda home.
About 7 p.m. Wednesday, 17-year-old Jon Sisto was holding on to the back of a friend's car as he rode his skateboard down Dalewood Drive.
Sisto apparently let go of the car, lost control and fell backward, hitting his head on the pavement. He was not wearing a helmet.
News that the college-bound teen had been critically injured spread via cellphone throughout the Bay Area on Wednesday night as his friends called one another at baseball games, neighborhood hangouts and summer jobs.
The accident on a quiet street shocked everyone who knew the 17-year-old and even those who didn't.
"The city is in mourning," said Orinda Police Sgt. Steve Simpkins.
"Jon was extremely popular and beloved," said former Miramonte High student body president Chelsea Fahr.
Sisto lived with his father, Albert, in Orinda. His mother, Jacalyn, lives in Lafayette. He had two older brothers, Matt and Brett.
It was not the first time Sisto had hitched a ride while on his board. Nor was he the only one who has done it.
"The kids do it all the time, especially in the Downs," 16-year-old Katie Rawson said. The "Downs" is a nickname for the Orinda neighborhood around Sundown Terrace.
This time, when Sisto hitched a ride, his friends think he may have misjudged the speed.
One friend, Lauren Sayres, left work early Thursday afternoon and sat on Dalewood Drive, near the accident site.
She had gone to the hospital Wednesday night but couldn't bring herself to see Sisto.
Sayres, entering her senior year at Miramonte High, had gone to school with Sisto, and they were next-door neighbors on Dalewood Drive.
She was at a friend's house when she received the call.
"I was devastated, in shock," she said.
Sisto was a popular senior with a lot of friends. He was good-looking and fun, Sayres said. His fellow seniors voted him "Most Flirtatious."
Sayres was Sisto's date for the senior ball in May. She smiled when she remembered the evening in San Francisco and how he asked her to go.
"One night he came over and threw rocks at my window. I came outside and he had a huge bouquet of flowers," she said, breaking down into tears.
He was a linebacker on the Miramonte football team, ran track and was an Eagle Scout. He had earned the rank in March after constructing an access ramp to the upper fields at the Lafayette Community Park.
"Jon was a real leader in our troop," Scoutmaster Tom Steuber said. "The younger scouts looked up to him like he was an older brother."
Sisto was due to start classes at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., this fall, where he planned to study politics.
He had hoped for a future in politics, eventually wanting to return to the Bay Area to run for senate, Sayres said.
"I always felt he had a bright future," Steuber said.
Hugs to you haley.