San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Survivor of Berkeley balcony collapse in 2015 dies in Ireland
Aoife Beary, a visiting Irish student who survived the deadly Berkeley balcony collapse in 2015, died of a stroke last weekend, according to the Irish Times and the University College Dublin. She was 27.
Beary was celebrating her 21st birthday on June 16, 2015, when the apartment balcony she and several other partygoers were standing on at the Library Gardens apartments collapsed, sending them plunging five stories.
Beary died at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin on Jan. 1 after suffering a stroke earlier in the week, according to the Irish Times, which first reported her death. It was not immediately known whether the stroke was related to injuries suffering in the balcony collapse.
Six Irish students died and seven others suffered serious injuries. Beary suffered a traumatic brain injury, broken arms, a broken pelvis, a broken jaw, a collapsed lung, broken ribs and other injuries.
Most of the partygoers were Irish college students spending the summer in the Bay Area on temporary work visas.
After the fall, Beary underwent numerous treatments, including open heart surgery, in California and Dublin hospitals. At the time, she was a student at University College Dublin, from which she graduated with a pharmacology degree in 2016. She had been attending Oxford Brookes University in England.
Joe Carthy, then University College’s dean of science, said in a statement that “Aoife dealt with the devastating impact of her accident with great bravery and fortitude. She will be greatly missed by her family and wide circle of friends.”
Investigators blamed the collapse on shoddy workmanship by the contractor, Segue Construction, which built the Library Garden apartment complex on Kittredge Street between 2005 and 2007. The balcony collapsed due to dry rot in supporting beams, and inspectors found that the contractor used substandard wood.
Segue, of Pleasanton, did not face criminal charges but the company had its license revoked — for at least five years — in 2017 as part of a settlement.
The company had a history of settling construction defect cases and had agreed to $26.5 million in legal settlements for construction defect cases in 2012 to 2015. But the Contractors
State License Board said it was unaware of the cases because state law does not require the company to report them.
Beary testified before the California Assembly in 2016 in support of legislation to require such reporting. She sobbed as she spoke, urging lawmakers to pass the proposal, which later became law.
“I miss my friends so much,” Beary said.“I had known them since we started school together at 4 years of age. We had grown up together. And now my birthday will always be their anniversary.”