Hundreds mourn loss of 13-year-old killed in dirt-bike accident
By Joann Groff and Kyle Jorrey joann@theacorn.com kjorrey@theacorn.com

Jake Lucas

Under a sunny sky in Simi Valley, hundreds of friends and family members gathered Thursday at Assumption Ceremony to say their final goodbye to Jake Lucas, a 13year-old Valley View Middle School student who was killed Sunday in a dirt-bike accident.

After a short afternoon prayer service, the group lingered, flooding the mausoleum where dirt bike banners were strung alongside flowers. Few wore traditional black, opting instead for their riding jerseys and protective gear, or hung helmets on their arms.

A group of Jake's closest friends huddled around his coffin, stepping aside only to allow mourners to affix stickers to the bright white enamel. Fox Racing, Mongoose Bikes and other motocross logos were carefully placed, rubbed and kissed by the boy's friends.

Jake was riding his off-road motorcycle in the hills north of Walnut Avenue and west of Tapo Canyon Road on Sunday afternoon when he struck a halfinchthick braided steel cable. Unable to stop, Jake suffered blunt-force injuries to his neck and was thrown from his bike, according to the police report.

IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers JAKE'S STEED- Simi resident Dylan Thompson examines the GTR 125cc Jake Lucas was riding the day he was killed. The bike was set up outside Crossroads Church on Wednesday night, when Jake's viewing was held.

Craig Stevens, a Ventura County medical examiner, said paramedics pronounced Jake dead at the scene.

'I told them to be careful'

Jeff Hillman, Jake's stepfather since he was 7, said he dropped off Jake and a friend at noon at a home near the area where they liked to go riding.

"I told them to go have a good time, but be careful," Hillman said.

Around 2:30 p.m., Hillman said he got a call from that friend telling him Jake had had an accident and was bleeding badly.

Hillman and Jake's mother, Kathy Hillman, jumped in their truck and sped to the area where Jake had been riding. Upon arriving, Hillman said he saw a large gathering of police and firefighters, but could not find Jake. Then he realized that rescue units, including a police helicopter and canine unit, were still searching.

"I said to my wife, 'There is no possible way he could be up here, that he got up this far,'" said Hillman, who decided to move the truck back down the hill about 100 feet.

"I jumped out and took off running, running and running and running," Hillman said. "It must have been 200 yards, I was yelling for him."

Hillman turned a corner and came upon Jake. He said he knew right away that the boy was gone. Shortly after, a paramedic came running over the hill with his bag.

It took emergency personnel from 20 to 30 minutes to locate Jake, finally using GPS from a friend's cellphone, according to James Baroni, the county's supervising medical examiner.

"At that point, I told (the paramedic), 'I'm not a doctor, but there's nothing we can do now,'" Hillman said.

'He was a good rider'

Jake's fatal accident came less than nine months after his mother and stepdad bought him his very own GTR 125cc dirt bike so he could join his older brother and their friends on rides through the Simi hills and other favorite offroading spots.

Before long, riding became Jake's passion, something he did almost every weekend, his stepfather said.

Eventually, the whole family got into the sport when Jake's mother purchased a bike and Hillman an ATV.

From the very beginning, his stepdad said, Jake was the cautious one of the lot, preferring a more moderate rate of acceleration than some of the other riders who accompanied him.

"Jake was always the careful one," Hillman said. "He'd be somewhere and you'd see his brother and his buddies flying over hills going really fast and we'd wonder 'Where'd Jake go?'" Hillman said. "Then he'd appear, just kind of tooling around on the bike. He was never crazy. He never did the extreme stuff like his brother."

Even a neighbor, City Councilmember Glen Becerra, took notice of Jake's safety-first attitude.

"As far as I saw, he never went out unless he was fully geared up: helmet, boots, gloves, the whole works," Becerra said.

Though Jake was fairly new to the sport, Hillman said he was a "good rider."

Still, it's doubtful any amount of skill could have prevented Sunday's fatal accident, he said.

"He just couldn't have seen (the cable) in time."

Questions linger

Five days after Jake's death, Hillman said there are a lot of questions the family still hasn't resolved.

"Nobody has any answers as of yet," he said. Hillman said he doesn't know for sure whose property Jake was on at the time of his death. "I have no idea. I don't know if the city owns it, if a certain developer owns it," he said. "I'm definitely looking for answers."

There are also questions as to why a steel cable was used to block traffic, as opposed to a fence. The cable was only about 2 or 3 feet off the ground. "I was running and running, then fast walking," Hillman said. "If I was running faster I would have tripped over it."

Simi police have asked anyone who witnessed the crash or was in the area to call Officers Alan McCord or Dan Hampson at (805) 583-6950.

Jake is survived by Hillman; his father, James Lucas; mother, Katherine Hillman, and brother, Matthew Lucas, 16.