Reuben Martin was 16 years old when he was diagnosed with an advanced form of Hodgkin's lymphoma.
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His soccer coach, Peter Coles, was among those who got in his corner. The cancer was at stage four. Doctors attacked it with especially strong chemotherapy drugs that burnt his throat and quickly put an end to his ultra-active lifestyle of surfing, soccer and rugby league.
Mr Coles had known Reuben, a good friend of his own son Jared, since he was two years old. ‘Are you scared?’ he asked him, during a visit to his hospital bedside.
“I’m gonna kick its a—e,” was Reuben’s reply.
And he did. He beat cancer and went on being the unassuming star of his sports teams, resumed his carpentry apprenticeship, got back in the ocean.
Mr Coles decided the Stanwell Tops teen was like the song he played to pump up he and his teammates before games – Titanium. He thought Reuben was bullet-proof. Maybe Reuben thought so too.
But that was an illusion, shattered in devastating style early Sunday. The 18-year-old died in the wreckage of a Nissan Skyline that slammed at speed into the back of a tipper truck on Walker Street at Helensburgh, about 2am.
The driver, 25-year-old Lachlan Scipione, of Clifton, suffered serious injuries and was airlifted to St George Hospital. His family spent three days at his bedside. On Thursday police confirmed that Lachlan too had succumbed to his injuries.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, friends congregated at Mr Coles’ home to share their grief.
“I sat down with them and just said, ‘boys, I’m hoping this has saved lives’,” Mr Coles said.
“Because statistically, someone else would have been killed in a car accident, because you guys don’t get it. You don’t get it because of your age and because you think you’re bullet-proof. And you’re not. And now you see it.”
Mr Coles said the Scipione and Martin families were very close.
Through her grief, Reuben’s mother Leanne had been at pains to comfort others, including the Scipiones, he said.
“She said ‘please, please, let the boys know. There’s no anger between our families’,” he said.
“They see that they were both being reckless. There’s nothing been released, but what everybody does know was that they had been drinking and they were speeding.
“Reuben wasn’t driving but Reuben was there. I love that kid, but that was reckless.”