Aoife Beary, a survivor of a 2015 balcony collapse in Berkeley that claimed the lives of six people and injured seven, died on Saturday, according to a statement from the University College Dublin.
Beary, 27, was admitted to a hospital on Dec. 29 with a stroke and passed away on Saturday in Dublin, according to media reports. It is not immediately clear if the stroke was connected to her earlier injuries from the balcony collapse. She was a student at Oxford Brookes University in England.
“Aoife dealt with the devastating impact of her accident with great bravery and fortitude,” said UCD’s Dean of Science Joe Carthy in a statement. “She will be greatly missed by her family and wide circle of friends.”
Beary, a former pharmacology student at UCD who was celebrating her 21st birthday in 2015 along with a group of other Irish students, suffered a life-threatening head injury, organ lacerations and multiple broken bones during the Berkeley balcony accident. Investigators later found that the wooden support beams holding up the balcony had rotted from water damage, and that the firm that had built the balcony had paid out millions in construction defect settlements. The settlements were never reported to the state license board.
The incident led Beary to testify before a state Assembly committee in 2016 and urged its members to support SB 465, which would make California study the causes of shoddy construction.
“Some of my injuries will be with me for the rest of my life,” Beary said at the time in an emotional testimony before committee members.
The legislation later unanimously passed the state Senate and was signed into law the same year as Beary’s testimony.
The United Irish Cultural Center of San Francisco’s President Liam Reidy said, “We are saddened to learn of the death of Aoife Beary in Dublin, Ireland today and her passing reminds us once again of the terrible tragedy that occurred in Berkeley back in 2015. While life goes on for many that remember the event, it still haunts the families and friends of all those who perished on that fateful night. We express our deepest sympathies to Aoife’s family in Ireland.”
The Irish Immigration Pastoral Center San Francisco, a nonprofit that assists Irish immigrants in the Bay Area, said in a Facebook statement Sunday, “It is with deepest sadness that we share the passing of Aoife Beary…”
According to the nonprofit, Beary is survived by her parents Mike and Angela, her sister Anna and her brother Tim.
Staff writer Jakob Rodgers contributed to this report.
Source: www.mercurynews.com