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Friends gathered this evening at the home of the 18-year-old woman who died hours earlier in a freak fiery crash at a gas pump at a west side 7-Eleven, mourning the 2008 Palmer High School graduate who strove to get the most out of life.
"She was just a very loving, happy person who loved life and lived it to the fullest," said Clelia DeMoraes, Whitney Hendrickson's mother.
She is also survived by her father David Hendrickson, a political science professor at Colorado College, a twin brother named Wesley, who is in his freshman year at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., and younger sister 16-year-old Marina, a junior at Palmer.
Hendrickson was on spring break from Grinnell College in Iowa and had just traveled to Colorado Springs with a college friend from Appleton, Wis., DeMoraes said.
"She was going to show her Colorado," she said.
The pair had planned to spend the day at Mount Princeton Hot Springs, one of Hendrickson's favorite spots. The crash happened after they arrived at the 7-Eleven to fuel up Hendrickson's parents' Honda minivan in preparation for a trip, as Whitney Hendrickson stood outside and put gas in the van. In a horrific chain-reaction crash, a pickup was pushed into gas pump, which was in turn forced into Hendrickson, pinning her against the minivan. She was unable to escape as flames engulfed the vehicle, even as several witnesses approached and tried in vain to help.
The passenger, 19-year-old Julie Podair, was uninjured.
Hours after the tragedy, Hendrickson's parents gathered with fellow mourners in their home on West Pikes Peak Avenue, including Hendrickson's friends.
They remembered Hendrickson as a funny and outgoing woman who had an easy time making friends. She was an honors student in Palmer's International Baccalaureate program and played on the school's lacrosse team. She enjoyed drawing, photography and art history and "blossomed" at college, her parents said.
David Hendrickson called his daughter a "very special" person and laughed when he recalled his daughter's Christmas gift to him last December - a humorous scrap book linking him to embarrassing scandals from 2008. The gift was typical of her wit and imagination, he said.
"She just had this way about her that was divine," he said. "I always thought she had a wonderful future ahead of her."
Friends called her rarely angry or sad. She was selfless and always game for adventure, they said.
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Friends gathered this evening at the home of the 18-year-old woman who died hours earlier in a freak fiery crash at a gas pump at a west side 7-Eleven, mourning the 2008 Palmer High School graduate who strove to get the most out of life.
"She was just a very loving, happy person who loved life and lived it to the fullest," said Clelia DeMoraes, Whitney Hendrickson's mother.
She is also survived by her father David Hendrickson, a political science professor at Colorado College, a twin brother named Wesley, who is in his freshman year at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., and younger sister 16-year-old Marina, a junior at Palmer.
Hendrickson was on spring break from Grinnell College in Iowa and had just traveled to Colorado Springs with a college friend from Appleton, Wis., DeMoraes said.
"She was going to show her Colorado," she said.
The pair had planned to spend the day at Mount Princeton Hot Springs, one of Hendrickson's favorite spots. The crash happened after they arrived at the 7-Eleven to fuel up Hendrickson's parents' Honda minivan in preparation for a trip, as Whitney Hendrickson stood outside and put gas in the van. In a horrific chain-reaction crash, a pickup was pushed into gas pump, which was in turn forced into Hendrickson, pinning her against the minivan. She was unable to escape as flames engulfed the vehicle, even as several witnesses approached and tried in vain to help.
The passenger, 19-year-old Julie Podair, was uninjured.
Hours after the tragedy, Hendrickson's parents gathered with fellow mourners in their home on West Pikes Peak Avenue, including Hendrickson's friends.
They remembered Hendrickson as a funny and outgoing woman who had an easy time making friends. She was an honors student in Palmer's International Baccalaureate program and played on the school's lacrosse team. She enjoyed drawing, photography and art history and "blossomed" at college, her parents said.
David Hendrickson called his daughter a "very special" person and laughed when he recalled his daughter's Christmas gift to him last December - a humorous scrap book linking him to embarrassing scandals from 2008. The gift was typical of her wit and imagination, he said.
"She just had this way about her that was divine," he said. "I always thought she had a wonderful future ahead of her."
Friends called her rarely angry or sad. She was selfless and always game for adventure, they said.