Angela Sullivan leaves the site of a makeshift memorial to Paige Robberson, 18, pictured above, on Hopkins Hill Road, in West Greenwich, where Robberson’s car crashed Monday night.

The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

WEST GREENWICH -- When Paige Robberson graduated from Exeter-West Greenwich Regional High School last month, she wanted to pursue nursing.

It was a career that her father, Gary Robberson, believed was well suited for his daughter, who celebrated her 18th birthday three weeks ago.

Robberson recalled at one time when Paige was a little girl visiting her great-grandmother at a nursing home, she seemed drawn to the other older people living there and enjoyed sitting with them. And when she got older and did a little baby-sitting for extra cash, she enjoyed caring for younger children.

“This is where the idea of becoming a CNA [certified nursing assistant] comes from,” her father said yesterday while trying to fight back tears. “Life is so fragile. She was a very loving person. She was my little girl. I believe she could have done anything she wanted to do.”

Paige Robberson died Monday shortly after 7 p.m. when her black Honda Accord veered off a rural section of Hopkins Hill Road and crashed into a pine tree. The car flipped over onto its side, causing the roof to collapse on the young driver, killing her instantly.

She lived with her parents, Gary and Elina Robberson, and brother Derek, 16, in a traditional home nestled in the woods on Henry Brown Road. Robberson worked occasionally at the Texas Roadhouse restaurant as a hostess and planned to attend the Community College of Rhode Island this fall. Robberson was scheduled to take her certified nursing assistant exam in a few weeks, her father said.

“She was very excited about graduating from high school, and I’m in shock,” Gary Robberson said as he sat on a bench in his driveway yesterday morning.

As the police try to piece together why Paige Robberson went off the road, yesterday Officer Keith Laliberte said they have ruled out alcohol or drugs as factors in her accident. He said when he spoke with her parents on Monday evening, they told him their daughter left home in her Honda, en route to a friends’ house, happy and pleasant.

The police did not find a cell phone at the accident site, near 572 Hopkins Hill Rd., and her parents said they don’t remember her bringing one with her, ruling out the possibility that she may have been text messaging while driving, Laliberte said.

While Gary Robberson surmised that his daughter may have hit a deer, speed was the probable cause, Laliberte said. He said that the police measured the skid marks, a noticeable arc on the roadway whose path leads to the edge of the winding road, and determined that the driver was traveling 60 miles an hour on the 25 mile-per-hour road. Paige Robberson’s boyfriend, Michael Disano Jr., created a memorial for his girlfriend where she crashed, and he hung on the tree several prom photos of them. At the tree’s base was a blue candle and a few bunches of hydrangeas and lilies. Many of her former classmates and others gathered yesterday at the site. They say Paige enjoyed getting all gussied up and going out.

“She liked to go out to the beach, go out and eat. We would watch movies,” said Disano, who graduated from Exeter-West Greenwich Regional High School with her and added that her favorite movie was Dirty Dancing.

“She liked girly things, getting her hair and her nails done,” said Michaela Brunette, another former classmate.

Joseph Massiwer, who also graduated from Exeter-West Greenwich, stood by the makeshift shrine, crying.

“I don’t want people to remember her for this,” he said of the accident. “I want people to remember her for how much fun we had. She was always there for you.”

lsparks@projo.com