{"id":281225,"date":"2026-05-22T19:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T19:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/281225\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T19:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T19:46:10","slug":"teen-who-died-in-crash-on-his-graduation-day-was-active-in-hobe-sound-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/281225\/","title":{"rendered":"Teen who died in crash on his graduation day was active in Hobe Sound church"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOBE SOUND, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 The loss of a local high school senior is being felt not only at South Fork High School in Martin County but also at his church.<\/p>\n

Christopher Brooks<\/a>, 18, of Hobe Sound was killed in a traffic accident at about 8:30 Thursday morning near the intersection of SW Pratt Whitney Road and SW Bulldog Way.<\/p>\n

The Martin County Sheriff says Brooks was on his way to a high school graduation practice when his Honda Accord ran into the back of a dump truck that was stopped at a traffic light.<\/p>\n

Brooks would have graduated Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Brooks attended First United Methodist Church <\/a>in Hobe Sound.<\/p>\n

The youth pastor at the church says Brooks took part in a church youth group for seven years.<\/p>\n

On Friday, t<\/a>ributes to Brooks grew outside South Fork High School. <\/a>Flowers, handwritten notes, candles and photos were left by members of the community. <\/p>\n

On Thursday evening, when Brooks was supposed to have graduated with his South Fork classmates, friends recalled an outgoing teen to whom faith was important<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Christopher's<\/p>\n

Christopher’s best friends leaned on each other as they come to terms with his sudden death. (WPEC)<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a very strong man of God, he prayed, he read his bible,” his friend Savannah Morris said.<\/p>\n

She said he also lived nearby and was at her house nearly every day, spending time with her brother, Ryland.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d come home from practice, and I would see his car in my driveway, and I\u2019d be like \u2018oh! Chris is here!\u201d she laughed.<\/p>\n

Ryland said he and Brooks bonded over faith and their love of cars.<\/p>\n

Why Brooks lost control of his car and struck the dump truck is not clear. The Florida Highway Patrol is investigating the crash and says Brooks may have been distracted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOBE SOUND, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 The loss of a local high school senior is being felt not only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":["post-281225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}