Man dies 1 month after scooter crash on UC Berkeley campus
The crash was previously unreported.
A local father who lost control of his electric scooter while riding through the UC Berkeley campus in December has died, authorities report.
Kenneth Wade, a 59-year-old Berkeley resident, died Monday morning. He had been hospitalized since the Dec. 1 crash.
According to the University of California Police Department, the agency got multiple 911 calls that day about an unconscious man who had fallen off his scooter near Moffitt Library shortly after 3 p.m.
The Berkeley Fire Department initially had trouble locating Wade, according to emergency dispatches reviewed by TBS.
When they did, they rushed him "Code 3" (with lights and sirens) to Oakland's Highland Hospital, the regional trauma center, for treatment.
Wade, who was not wearing a helmet, was bleeding from the head but had no other obvious injuries, according to reports from the scene.
Authorities said he "crash landed on the back of his head" after coming down the hill at high speed, according to initial reports.
Wade did not attend Cal or work at the university, authorities said this week.
No other details about the crash were immediately available.
It wasn't the only fatal collision involving an electric scooter in recent weeks.
Just two weeks after Wade's crash, 34-year-old Jorge Velazquez Sosa of Oakland died when he crashed into a parked car while riding an electric scooter without a helmet in central Berkeley, police have said.
Velazquez was pronounced dead at the scene.
Read more about traffic safety in Berkeley.
As electric scooters have become more common in recent years, injury reports have also risen.
From 2017 to 2022, e-scooter injuries increased by more than 45% each year, according to Harvard Health Publishing, going from 8,566 to 56,847.
And then they kept rising. Another study found that e-scooter injuries jumped 80% from 2023 to 2024 alone, from more than 64,000 to nearly 116,000.
Experts advise e-scooter riders to wear helmets and slow down, among other safety tips, to reduce the chance of injury.
Many solo crashes go unreported even when they result in serious injury or death.
