Tristan Boyd killed in bicycle accident in Sabattus, Maine – NECN

A teenager has died in Sabattus, Maine, after being hit by a pickup truck while riding his bicycle.

Boston affiliate NBC10 News Center Maine reports that Sabattus police and firefighters responded to Litchfield Road and Hillside Drive around 2:30 p.m. Thursday because Route 126 was partially closed following an accident between a car and a cyclist.

A preliminary investigation revealed that the cyclist had reportedly left Hillside Drive and was heading west on Litchfield Road when he was struck by a Chevrolet pickup truck driven by a 35-year-old Portland man, News Center Maine reported.

The teenager was taken to Central Maine Medical Center, where he later died, police said. He has since been identified as 15-year-old Tristan Boyd of Sabattus, according to News Center Maine.

The Chevy driver is cooperating with the investigation, police said. Alcohol does not appear to have played a role in the accident.

Family members are now mourning this tremendous loss, remembering Boyd as a larger-than-life child who loved his family. They say he died doing what he loved: driving around town.

“Tristan was a beautiful soul who woke up every day determined to be better than the day before,” his mother, Whitney Bouchard, told News Center Maine. “He was thoughtful, funny, curious, adventurous and devoted to his family. He was a free spirit who no one could hold back. He was my everything and my only purpose in life. Not a day will go by that I won't carry him with me. Forever.”

“He was incredibly kind. He would have given the shirt off his back,” Megan Boyd, his aunt, told News Center Maine. “He was just a good boy who loved his family.”

Boyd also loved basketball, music, computers and the freedom of the outdoors, which included riding quad bikes and bicycles.