Samson Walters loved fishing, foraging for mushrooms and agates, and “hunting for any wildlife that he could fry.”

Hockey families around Mahtomedi have been putting hockey sticks out on their front porches and turning on their porch lights to show support for Samson Walters, 16, of Hugo, who was critically injured in a head-on collision in Grant on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023. (Courtesy of Mahtomedi Youth Hockey Association)

Walters, 16, of Hugo, died Saturday at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, three days after he was critically injured in a car accident on his way to school at Mahtomedi High School.

Walters, a Junior Gold 16 player with the Mahtomedi Youth Hockey Association, loved being outside, according to his obituary.

“The outdoors were Samson’s happy place,” the obituary states. “You would rarely find him inside.”

Walters, whose nickname was “Smiler,” was a great big brother and a triple-sport athlete who had a smile that “lit up every room he entered,” according to his obituary.

“He lived for adventure and travel, if he could push it to the limit, he would — even if it meant scaring the daylights out of his mom,” his obituary states. “Fear and caution were not words he knew well. Samson lived every day to the fullest, living more life in his 16 years than most do in a lifetime.”

Walters is survived by his parents and three younger siblings.

A celebration of Walter’s life will take place at noon Wednesday at Bradshaw Funeral Home in Stillwater, with visitation starting at 10 a.m. Wednesday. Visitation also will be held from 5-8 p.m. Tuesday at Bradshaw Funeral Home.

Sources said Walters was driving one of three vehicles involved in the crash just around 7:50 a.m. Nov. 29 at Jamaca Avenue and Justen Trail in Grant. According to a spokesperson for the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, a 16-year-old Hugo boy was driving a 2008 Infiniti Cobra southbound on Jamaca when the accident occurred.

Nicholas Meinen, 40, of Stillwater, who was driving a 2017 Hyundai Sonata northbound on Jamaca, also was injured in the accident and transported by ambulance to Regions Hospital. Karen Cariveau, 47, St. Paul, who was driving a 2019 Toyota RAV4 northbound on Jamaca, was treated at the scene and released, police said.

Preliminary evidence, based on initial reports and witness accounts, suggests the 16-year-old driver was in the process of passing another vehicle when they struck an oncoming vehicle head-on, the spokesperson said.

The Minnesota State Patrol responded to the scene to conduct a crash reconstruction and the investigation is ongoing.

A GoFundMe fundraiser for Walters’ family had raised more than $37,000 of its $45,000 goal by Monday afternoon. Funds raised will help pay his funeral costs and the “unknown medical expenses incurred from the emergency brain surgery and several days of life support with 24/7 care,” according to the GoFundMe post.

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