Healey Remembered as 'Definition of a True Friend'

North Kingstown laid to rest another victim from last Sunday’s deadly crash Saturday – the second in as many days. Hundreds packed into Saturday morning for the funeral of Madeline “Maddie” Healey, just who also passed away in .

Friends, family, Principal Thomas Kenworthy, Superintendent Phil Auger and hundreds of others paid their respects as Healey’s older sister, Meghan, and remembered the 18-year-old.

“Maddie protected her friends and family and cared about others more than herself,” her sister remembered. Meghan admitted that the sisters were slightly prone to fighting – “mostly about clothing” –  but loved each other dearly.

Rev. John Unsworth of St. Bernard’s also spoke of Healey’s love for her siblings, especially her younger brothers and sisters Emily, Sophie and Jack.

For one of Healey’s friends who spoke, Healey was “the definition of a true best friend.” The two loved belting out the lyrics to Mandy Moore’s “All Good Things” and made twice a week trips to Panera Bread where Healey would order “the most disgusting thing ever” – a tuna sandwich topped with a “heaping pile of onions.”

Healey and Ruggieri were driving home with two friends from Denny’s just before dawn on the morning of Feb. 19 when their truck hit two boulders and crashed, landing on its roof. The driver of the truck – Nicholas Whiteley, 21, of North Kingstown – and Healey were both ejected from the vehicle while Ruggieri and Christopher Mortin were trapped inside. Whiteley is in critical condition at Rhode Island Hospital while Mortin was treated and released the same day.

Concluding the services, Meghan Healey read a poem penned by her sister that was found at the scene of the crash on a pile of leaves.

you

have to

take the good

with the bad, smile

when you’re sad, love

what you’ve got, remember

what you’ve had.          always

forgive, but never forget;    learn

from your mistakes, but never

regret,  people change,

things go wrong

but just remember

life goes

on.