{"id":201647,"date":"2025-10-10T00:14:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T00:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/201647\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T00:14:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T00:14:06","slug":"boy-tragically-killed-during-car-crash-in-northern-nsw-identified-as-rugby-loving-true-role-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/201647\/","title":{"rendered":"Boy tragically killed during car crash in northern NSW identified as rugby-loving \u2018true role model\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

A small farming community is mourning the tragic death of a young boy<\/a> after a car he is understood to have been driving rolled over.<\/p>\n

Emergency services received reports a ute had crashed about 11am on Girraween Road in Graman, 50km northwest of Inverell, on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The supposed driver of the car, 11-year-old Leighton Stevens, was treated by paramedics but was tragically pronounced dead at the scene.<\/p>\n

Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today \"Download<\/a><\/p>\n

It is understood Leighton had been driving with another 11-year-old to a nearby family paddock when he swerved to avoid a cow which had walked onto the road, the Daily Telegraph reported.<\/a><\/p>\n

While under the legal driving age, it is common practice for young children to learn how to drive on private regional properties.<\/p>\n

The was airlifted to Lismore Base Hospital in a serious condition.<\/p>\n

The small town of just over 100 people \u2014 according to the 2021 census \u2014 has been left heartbroken by the tragedy, with a GoFundMe<\/a> launched on Friday honouring Leighton as \u201cthe heart of our little Graman community\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeighton was a cheeky, fun loving country kid,\u201d the fundraiser reads. \u201c(He) loved his fishing, farming, footy, hunting and most of all family was everything,\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe brought smiles, laughter and you couldn\u2019t help but love him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Warialda Wombats Junior Rugby League Football Club, where Leighton played, remembered him as \u201cwell mannered\u201d, \u201ckind hearted\u201d and \u201ca true role model for our younger \u2018bats\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeighton was a pleasure to have around the junior league fields,\u201d the club\u2019s committee wrote in a Facebook post sharing the \u201cabsolutely heartbreaking news\u201d of Leighton\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope you have found yourself a footy field up their mate and an endless supply of balls.\u201d<\/p>\n

The club\u2019s senior team also paid tribute, saying that he had a \u201cmassive impact\u201d on game days.<\/p>\n

\u201cTravelling to away games to run the tee and water, even if his siters weren\u2019t playing, just to be there for the big boys,\u201d a post on the club\u2019s Facebook page read.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to rally around the family in this difficult time and show our support and love.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tragedy comes just weeks after a teenager in the community suddenly died while sleeping.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo much loss over the past few weeks of two beautiful young children,\u201d one local wrote.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Popular baseballer, bike shop worker among victims of deadly 24-hours on roads<\/p>\n

3 min read<\/p>\n

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Alarming new details emerge about alleged cop killer\u2019s shooting spree <\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A small farming community is mourning the tragic death of a young boy after a car he is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,3698,44,4277,760,85],"class_list":["post-201647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-car-accidents","tag-news","tag-nsw-police","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}