9/18/1997  The Bristol Press

CRASH VICTIM REMEMBERED IN PARK VIGIL
By James O'Keefe

BRISTOL -- Dozens of Bristol Eastern High School students held a candlelight vigil at Page Park Wednesday night to remember a well-liked classmate who died from injuries she sustained in a weekend motorcycle accident.
Amanda Quinto, 18, of 323 Brook St., died at about 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, hospital spokesman Pete Mobilia said. Friends said she never regained consciousness.
Quinto, a senior at Bristol Eastern, was a passenger on a motorcycle that collided with a car at the intersection of Main and Center streets Saturday night. Quinto, who wasn't wearing a helmet, suffered severe head injuries and was flown by Life Star helicopter to St. Francis Hospital.
Friends and classmates embraced and consoled one another after learning that Quinto had been taken off of life support.
They remembered Quinto as a friendly, pretty girl who played the trumpet in the school band and went by the nickname "Glamour Girl."
"She was so sweet. Everyone loved her," said Bristol Eastern senior Chrissy Chasse, who'd been one of Quinto's best friends for seven years. "She loved to dance. We used to love to go to Club 2001."
Nearly 60 of Quinto's friends showed up at the hospital Tuesday afternoon to see her, senior Travis Lagace said.
"She was so pretty. She always had to be perfect. That's why we called her -Glamour Girl,'" longtime close friend Melixa Alejandro said.
Alejandro said she went to the hospital on Wednesday to say good-bye to her best friend before doctors removed from life support. On the drive to the hospital, the Puff Daddy song "I'll Be Missing You" was playing on the radio, Alejandro said.
A tape of the song was played at Wednesday night's vigil.
Tuesday night friends lit two candles at the crash site. A white candle for hope and a maroon candle for love, Lagace said.
Lagace said the mood at Bristol Eastern has been a somber since Saturday's crash. "It's been hell. Everyone is so sad," Lagace said. He said school social worker Carol Dresser -- who attended the vigil -- has been helping students cope with the tragedy.
Alejandro said she was supposed to hang with Quinto and sleep over her house Saturday night. But the two never got together. Alejandro learned the following morning that her friend had been critically injured.
Quinto lived with her father, John, her stepmother, Judy, and two younger brothers. Funeral arrangements were incomplete late Wednesday.
Police are continuing their investigation into the fatal accident.
Quinto was riding on the back of a motorcycle driven by Eric Files, 21, of Bristol, at the time of the crash. Files was driving his motorcycle eastbound on Center Street when he collided with a car that was pulling out of Main Street.
Files suffered minor injuries in the 10:10 p.m. accident. The driver of the car, identified by police as 27-year-old Cynthia Soucy of Bristol, wasn't injured.
Quinto's friends said they were extremely grateful to a passerby who performed CPR on Quinto before police and paramedics arrived. Although they didn't know the man's identity, they credited him with helping to save Quinto's life the night of the accident.
This was the second fatal accident in Bristol in less than a week.
On Sept. 11, 21-year-old city resident Nicole Bard was killed when she lost control of her car and struck a stone retaining wall next to a Pine Street home. That crash also remains under investigation.