OCEAN CITY — The community is mourning Carling Mott, a 2012 Ocean City High School graduate who died in a bicycle accident in New York City last week.
“She was just a warm person,” said Greg Wheeldon, a newly retired OCHS television and media production teacher who taught Mott and worked with her on The Morning Wave, then the in-school TV program. “She was a very gifted kid. She could make you smile.”
“She worked in a classroom with kids of all different types,” said Wheeldon, who was devastated by the news of her death. “You had athletes, you had artists, you had special needs kids, quiet kids, gifted students. Regardless of their level, Carling was always a leader in giving her time not only to make a great project or great product for the school, but to work with the kids who needed help. She was just amazing.”
“It’s such a punch to the gut,” Wheeldon said. “She was so young, she was 28. So much was going on for her.”
Cody Barr, who graduated from OCHS a year before Mott and worked with her on The Morning Wave, said she “was probably the most joyous person I’ve ever met. A real love for everyone she met and hobby she had.”
Barr, who lives in the same area of New York City, went over and placed flowers near the scene of the accident.
Fellow OCHS graduate Leah Canderan noted “just how great a friend she was. She would do anything for her friends at the drop of a hat. She was selfless and a wonderful friend.”
A memorial service and calling hours were Monday at Greate Bay Country Club for the daughter of James and Janice Mott of Ocean City.
According to the New York Daily News, citing police sources, Mott fell while riding her Citi Bike on the Upper East Side.
The Daily News report said the driver of a Great Dane tractor-trailer was stopped at a red light on East 85th Street at Madison Avenue just before 11 a.m. Tuesday and when the light turned green, he continued west and Mott, heading in the same direction, fell off her bike beneath the truck.
Mott, who was about a half-mile from her home, was rushed to New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center but could not be saved, according to the Daily News.
The driver was not charged and police are investigating the incident.
Mott was a production manager at Nickelodeon who studied television, radio and film at Syracuse University, graduating in 2016 from the university’s Newhouse School.
“This certainly hits hard,” said Samantha DiMatteo, the OCHS girls tennis coach. “Carling was on my team in my first year coaching.”
She said Mott helped shape her early memories about Red Raider tennis and her views as a coach.
“The first thing that comes to mind was how helpful she was,” DiMatteo said, calling her an important part of the program who “was always willing to do anything for anybody. She was the first to volunteer, the first to help the other girls.
“She was a really kind, sweet, happy, smiling girl,” DiMatteo said. “It’s really devastating.”
The coach noted how Mott’s mother, also a tennis player, was proud of her and that tennis was a family activity. Mott also excelled at lacrosse and competitive sailing.
Her latest post on Facebook, on July 22, was a fundraiser.
She wrote to friends and family saying she would be running in the Chicago Marathon in support of the American Cancer Society.
In a June 1 post, Mott had a picture of herself running the TCS New York City Marathon with the caption, “Never could have imagined where running has taken me.”
“My heart breaks for the family,” DiMatteo said. “Carling was kind-hearted, hardworking, a good student, just a great kid. Not a bad bone in her body.”
“She was like a daughter,” Wheeldon said. “I loved that kid. Every year you have students and you love them all. They’re like your children. When you work in an arts class like mine and spend so much extra time doing it,” he said he got to know Mott well.
“Carling was a big leader of The Morning Wave. She was a producer of the show. She went on to work at Nickelodeon because she got further interested in the field because of the course work that she did at the high school,” he said. “The Morning Wave ended her senior year. She was in charge of doing the finale show, the retrospective show.”
After her senior year, the show changed format because of a schedule change at OCHS.
“She was very funny. She would create segments … and bookend them with segments that were funny. She would make you laugh. She hosted the farewell episode of The Morning Wave, which was hard for me personally because it was (going on for) nine years.”
Mott did a comedy skit about her being in denial about The Morning Wave coming to an end, Wheeldon said.
“Here is a beautiful girl with everything going for her, and you know how some of those girls can be mean? Not Carling,” Wheeldon said. “She was just so down to Earth; she respected everything. Maybe because she was an artist and an athlete, she was one in a million. I’m crushed.”
The teacher added that students have a tendency to “freeze in time,” and that as he would run into her after high school he would forget she was all grown up.
“I said, ‘You can call me Greg.’ ‘No, no, no,” she said. ‘You’re always going to be Mr. Wheeldon to me,’” he said, noting how she would always take the time to pay attention to his children.
“She was one of the best students I ever had and one of the warmest people I was ever fortunate enough to meet, let alone work with and teach,” Wheeldon said. “Sometimes you learn more from the kids. She taught me how to be an extremely patient, kinder person.”
In addition to her parents, survivors include her grandmother, (Mimi) Georgia Miller of Somers Point, best friend and love of her life Nick Ross of New York City, aunts, uncles and cousins. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the NJ Osprey Project at Conservewildlifenj.org, 2 Preservation Place, Princeton, NJ 08540. Condolences may be left at godfreyfuneralhome.com.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff