Friends and family gathered under rainy skies on Tuesday to recall the humor and adventurous spirit of Aric B. Wooley, a 17-year-old swimming star from Schaumburg who died in a car wreck five days after graduating from high school.
About 600 people packed Trinity Lutheran Church in Roselle to attend his funeral and remember the young man with a knack for making others laugh, who was also described as a “natural” at the 100-yard freestyle.
“Who would think you’d be burying one of your friends at 17?” said Sarah McKinney, a 17-year-old who competed with Wooley on the Schaumburg Park District’s swim team. “I was expecting to be reading about him in the newspaper in college. A lot of people expected good things out of him.”
Wooley, an Eagle Scout who attended Conant High School in Hoffman Estates, had planned to attend Southern Illinois University in Carbondale this fall on a full swimming scholarship. He died Friday after the car he was driving collided with a semi tractor-trailer in Wood Dale.
The driver of the truck, Richard Gancarz, 43, of Bloomingdale, was charged with driving with a suspended license. He is being held in DuPage County Jail on $750,000 bond. Prosecutors are considering upgrading the charges to reckless homicide or aggravated driving under the influence after medical tests revealed he had marijuana in his system at the time of the accident, authorities said.
Gancarz has a long history of traffic offenses. He was arrested three times for driving under the influence of alcohol in the past six years, according to the Illinois secretary of state’s office. He was given court supervision in one case in 1994. His license was suspended in a second case that same year.
Gancarz’s license was suspended again in March after he refused to take a Breathalyzer test following a single-car accident on the Edens Expressway in Chicago.
Meanwhile, investigators with the secretary of state’s office are trying to determine how Gancarz obtained commercial licenses in Illinois and Indiana during the early 1990s. Drivers typically are required to turn in a commercial license from one state before obtaining one in a second state, according to Elizabeth Kaufman of the secretary of state’s office.
There is no record that Gancarz surrendered his Illinois license, she said.
Wooley was on his way to work at his father’s construction business in Elk Grove Village when the accident occurred shortly before 9 a.m. Friday. Wooley was turning left from eastbound Thorndale Avenue onto northbound Wood Dale Road when his Chevrolet Camaro was struck on the passenger side by the westbound semi, authorities said.
Wooley’s father, Jerry, saw the accident and stayed by his son’s side until paramedics arrived to take him to Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village, where he was later pronounced dead.
Friends who attended Wooley’s funeral described how they cheered him on as he took eighth in the 100-yard freestyle in a state high school swim meet in February.
“He could not practice and still beat everybody,” said Carl Kopecky, 17, a friend and fellow swim-team member at Conant.
Wooley’s father described his son as a “high adventurer” who enjoyed hiking, camping, rafting, horseback riding and boating.
Jerry Wooley had planned to go to Key West with his son this August to sail a 68-foot rented boat. Just last week, he said, they went water-skiing in Wisconsin.
“It was just so nice we did something as a family and shared an important time,” said Jerry Wooley. “We never realized until now just how important a day it was.”