Alex Beiga loved adventure.
Biking, snowboarding, hiking — outdoors was where he’d usually be, would have liked to always be, if he could.
“He wasn’t afraid to just do stuff,” his sister, Eva Beiga, said. “He just had that adventurous spirit in him and was always wanting to do more.”
Adventure recently took Alex to the Swiss Alps. It was his dream to go snowboarding in Switzerland, Eva said. Their dad — an Olympic swimmer — and mom made it happen this year, while Alex, 15, was on spring break from his freshman year at Naperville Central High School.
Alex’s parents returned home to Naperville from the trip on Wednesday. But he wasn’t with them.
Alex was one of three people who died in an avalanche near the Swiss resort of Zermatt on Monday, according to interviews with family and those close to him. Other victims included a 58-year-old Swiss man and a 25-year-old Canadian woman, according to police from the Switzerland canton (state) of Valais.
The avalanche occurred about 2 p.m. local time, the Associated Press reported, citing Swiss authorities. A fourth person, a 20-year-old Swiss man, was flown to a hospital with serious injuries.
Eva, 20, heard from her mom Monday. She was away at college in Connecticut at the time but went back to Naperville Tuesday, she said, to wait for her parents’ return.
“It was a shock,” she said, speaking over the phone Thursday.
Though five years apart, Alex was her “built-in best friend,” Eva said.
Their family as a whole was close and prioritized spending time together, Eva added, even if it was just time spent together at home. When they did get away, Eva said, Colorado was their vacation spot of choice. Over the past few summers, that’s where they went, she recalled.
Colorado this past summer was one of the last trips Eva and Alex took together, she said.
Adventure found Alex there, too.
“We got to do a lot of those adventurous things together. We got to go on bike rides with him, got to walk around with him,” Eva said. “And (those) are memories that I’ll cherish forever.”
When Alex wasn’t tackling a new escapade, he was in the water. He and Eva grew up swimming. They took after their dad, Nerijus “Ned” Beiga, who swam for Lithuania in the 1992 and 1996 Summer Olympics, according to Eva and the Olympics website.
Both Alex and Eva were a part of the Academy Bullets Swim Club, which has several locations across Illinois. It was at Academy Bullets that the siblings met “some of the best people” and coaches, Eva said, and found a community.
Brian Brown met Alex when Alex transferred into the Academy Bullets program out of Westmont. Brown had been Alex’s swim coach until about 18 months ago, he said in a call Wednesday. They parted ways when both Brown and Alex transferred to different academy locations, but they still saw each other at meets or the occasional practice, Brown said.
Brown remembered Alex as hardworking and constantly positive.
“He had this innate ability to know when to crack a joke. When practice got real hard, (when) his teammates … were getting a little discouraged, he knew when to make it funny,” Brown said.
Jokes weren’t the only way Alex kept the mood light at practice. He’d often ask Brown to throw on some music — preferably classic rock.
“He was always (asking to) put on, you know, AC/DC, put on Tom Petty, put on Van Halen,” Brown said.
Alex’s death, Brown said, is a “big loss for our program, a big loss for his teammates that aren’t going to have that happy kid at practice anymore and it’s a big loss for the future — whatever he was going to do, he was going to be very successful.”
Wednesday was the first Academy Bullets practice that Alex’s team spent without him, according to Todd Capen, who had been Alex’s coach over the past year and a half out of the academy’s Aurora location.
Alex trained in the Academy Bullets’ senior group, Capen said. They practiced a couple of hours a day, six days a week, he said. They were close-knit.
“It was very difficult,” Capen said of Wednesday’s practice. “A lot of tears, some anger.”
Capen said he kept reminding the team that “they shouldn’t have to deal with (this).”
“Fifteen-year-olds shouldn’t have to deal with grieving other 15-year-olds,” he said.
Still, he encouraged Alex’s former teammates to “remember all the things that they got to do with (him) that made them smile.”
Eva said she’ll miss how Alex always knew how to make her laugh. She and her parents have been “trying to hang in there as much as we can and be there for one another,” Eva explained.
A steady outpouring of support and messages over the past few days has helped, she said.
“It’s also been amazing to see all the people reaching out and just saying how much of an influence Alex had in their lives and how he was able to bring so much positivity and joy to a lot of people,” Eva said.
In a campus email to parents and guardians Tuesday, Naperville Central Principal Jackie Thornton offered “sincere condolences” to Alex’s family and friends.
She also extended counseling services to students as the school “mourn(s) the loss of our fellow Redhawk.”
As of Thursday, a GoFundMe launched for Alex has amassed about $48,000. Family friend Neringa Mockus started the fundraiser. It was the least she could do, she said, reached by phone Thursday.
Mockus’ family members have been friends with the Beigas for years, she said. Her son, Simas, and her daughter, Emilija, grew up with Alex. To her, Alex felt like a son, Mockus said.
When she heard about Monday’s avalanche, Mockus had hoped that Alex would be found alive, she said. Hearing that he was gone, Mockus said, was “horrible.”
“Telling my son was just the most horrific thing,” she said. “It’s hard. It will be hard for a very long time.”
She added, “My goodness, I’ll miss everything about this kid. …He (lightened) up the room, you know. He was this super joyful person.”
Emilija, 19, echoed her mom, describing Alex as “the definition of the life of the party.”
“It’s very surreal. … Like wake me up from this nightmare,” she said.
Emilija said the only thing that is letting her “take a breath of fresh air” is knowing that Alex made it to the Swiss Alps.
“He was looking at mountains, and he loved that,” she said. “And I know that he just felt very at home.”
The Associated Press contributed.
