The 19-year-old Santa Clarita Valley man killed in a car crash last week was full of energy and expected to make an impact on the world, mourners said Wednesday during a memorial service before burial.
“Dakota set his sights high; he lived on the edge and he had class,” Los Angeles County firefighter Mark Demott said of his son Dakota Demott, who died when the Ford Mustang in which he was riding slammed into a tree on Sand Canyon Road on Jan. 10. Investigators have said speed was a factor in the crash.
At least 600 people turned out for the funeral ceremony Wednesday at St. Clare’s Catholic Church in Canyon Country.
The Rev. Malcolm Ambrose quoted from a poem written by Dakota Demott.
“I know I can achieve great things in life if given the chance,” the young man wrote. “I will make something of myself worldwide. You will hear about me.”
The Canyon Country man was born July 15, 1992, and described by Mark Demott as the “life of any party.”
“Dakota was always thinking and he was always motivated to invent something,” Mark Demott said. “He loved animals.
At one point, he was determined to get a tiger and a monkey.”
Dakota Demott was a Canyon High School grad and had been considering a military career at the time of his death, Mark Demott said.
“He asked me if I’d ever heard of the Air Force ‘PJs,’ Mark Demott said. “He said ‘Dad, there’s only 400 of them.’”
Air Force ParaRescue Jumpers, or “PJs,” are a U.S. Air Force special forces component.
Colt Doherty, 19, also of Canyon Country, was the driver of the Ford Mustang at the time of the crash. He remained in critical condition at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital on Wednesday, a Sheriff’s Department official said.
Doherty had been placed in a medically induced coma after the accident, but made enough improvement by Jan. 14 for doctors to take him off life support.
The crash investigation was ongoing, and sheriff’s officials were examining the possibility that another car may have been involved.
After the funeral, Dakota Demott was buried at Eternal Valley Memorial Park in Newhall.
“We’re not going to say farewell,” Ambrose said. “We’re going to say, ‘We’ll see you again in heaven.’”
