Investigators are trying to figure out how Lynlee Gilbert smashed her car into a tree near Elburn. Another teenager who was in the car is in critical condition.
Both teenagers Attended Batavia High School. Gilbert had just received her driver's license in April.
"It's hard. I can't believe she's gone. It doesn't feel real," said Gilbert's friend Sabrina Peters.
Gilbert was killed Monday evening as the vehicle she was driving, a 1989 Dodge sedan, went off the road and struck a tree near Elburn.
At the scene of the accident Tuesday, Gilbert's friends mourned her death and remembered her well.
"She wanted to become a child psychiatrist to help children with drug addict parents. She had the biggest heart in the world," said Peters.
Gilbert's passenger, 18-year-old Batavia High School student Sarah Ginter, is listed in critical condition at Delnor Community Hospital.
The two students were preparing to graduate on June 3.
The superintendent says both girls are well liked at the school and the crisis teams have been set up to help the staff and students with their grief.
"Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family, both the family of the child who is gone and the child of the family who is still fighting to live," said Greg Romaneck, Batavia School District associate superintendent.
Sheriff's investigators say that the car was traveling north on Green Road near Clover Hill Road. For some unknown reason the driver left the road near a curb, crossed southbound traffic and struck a tree.
"We're gonna have to wait for toxicologies to come back to rule out whether drugs or alcohol were involved," said Kane County Sheriff's Department Lt. Pat Gengler.
Police have looked at the physical evidence and determined that one girl was definitely wearing a seat belt. That doesn't rule out that the other one was not. The 1989 vehicle did not have airbags.
