My town seems to be cursed to see one of our high schoolers lost in a tragic accident every other year. My thoughts and prayers go out to his loved ones.

A tragic end to Burrillville teen’s ‘best year ever’
01:00 AM EST on Monday, January 4, 2010
By Paul Edward Parker
Providence Journal Staff Writer


Mason Boltrushek, 17, and his girlfriend Katie O’Connor.
Courtesy of Katie O’Connor

BURRILLVILLE — Katie O’Connor and Mason Boltrushek spent Saturday morning at his house catching up on recorded episodes of the television series “Smallville.”

Katie made cinnamon buns for her boyfriend. She burned them, but that didn’t matter. He liked them anyway.

Then the 17-year-olds, both seniors at Burrillville High School, prepared to leave. He was headed to work at Wright’s Farm Restaurant; she was going home for an afternoon of studying.

She told him to have fun at work. He said it would be more fun than studying all day.

Outside, they discovered new-fallen snow had covered their cars. He gave her a brush and said he’d clean her car, but he didn’t want to be late for work. They made plans for her to return to his house after he got out of work at 10. Finally, a few minutes after Mason left, Katie pulled out of his driveway and headed home.

But she wouldn’t spend her afternoon doing schoolwork.

Mason’s 15-year-old sister, Emma, called and asked whether Katie had heard Mason was in a car accident.

The two girls met in a small room at Landmark Medical Center in Woonsocket. Emma was scared. Katie told her not to be, that everything would be all right.

But it wouldn’t.

The Burrillville police say that Mason lost control of his car as he drove north on Route 102 near Bella Restaurant. He spun into the southbound lane, where a pickup truck collided with his car broadside, just behind the driver’s door. Mason’s car then struck a third vehicle. He was taken to Landmark, where he died.

The driver of the pickup truck, Edward H. Braley Jr., 41, of 121 Carlton Ave., North Smithfield, and his passenger, Donna St. Jacques, of Pascoag, were both treated at Landmark and released. The driver of the other car, Renee N. Jutras, 23, of 15 Rocky Hill Rd., North Scituate, and a passenger, Chase Henault, were treated at the scene and refused to be taken to the hospital.

The police said weather was a factor in the accident, which is under investigation.

Mason owned a classic, teenage-boy dream car, a Pontiac Trans Am, but his parents, Roger and Debra J. Boltrushek, told him he couldn’t drive it in winter weather. Instead, Saturday afternoon, he drove a sensible Dodge Stratus.

“He was, if anything, a Nervous Nellie driver,” his aunt, Linda Bassi, said Sunday at the family’s house at 860 Round Top Rd. She and his parents said he wore a seatbelt and took his time getting places. His mother said she would sometimes text him while he was driving, planning to take his keys if he replied. He never did.

His family, which includes a 9-year-old brother and 11-year-old sister in addition to Emma, said Mason had been a quiet and reserved teen very much into playing Xbox video games up until this year.

“The only time you saw him, he was getting a glass of water or running to the bathroom,” said his mother. “He’d skip meals.” He lost weight, which really showed on his 6-foot-2-inch frame.

But this year he came out of his shell.

“He was the happiest I’d seen,” said his aunt.

He and Katie had met in a freshman science class. “We did labs together and became good friends,” she said. In September, that changed, and they started dating. The next month, at the top of his MySpace page on the Internet, he posted: “This is going to be the best year ever.”

He and Katie had started talking about the prom, about him wearing an all-white tuxedo, about renting a Hummer limousine for them and their friends.

Mason was rarely without his friends. “They would always do everything in a pack,” said mom.

That included movie night in the loft, a childhood playroom converted to a teenage hangout in his parents’ home. He and his friends were known as the LGCY –– legacy –– Crew at school, where they were voted the “tightest crew,” or closest group of friends.

He was interested in basketball, wrestling and tennis, which he played for his school. He planned to go to the Community College of Rhode Island to pursue a career in police work.

Meantime, he spent every Friday night, Saturday and Sunday doing food prep at Wright’s Farm.

But Katie O’Connor will remember Mason as the boy who could make anybody laugh, who never got “brain freezes” no matter what quantity of cold beverages he drank, who took her to a Dane Cook comedy show in Boston New Year’s Eve as a Christmas present.

Others may benefit from an even greater gift.

Mason’s parents have donated his eyes, bones, skin and heart valves, which doctors told them could help treat 300 other people.