Man Bicycling Across America For Charity Is Killed After Being Hit By Driver Distracted By Cell Phone


A 25-year-old cyclist, Patrick Wanninkhof, was riding his bike across America to raise money for affordable housing projects with a group called Bike and Build when he was hit by a distracted driver and killed. The group has a number of cyclists who ride across the U.S. raising money for affordable housing projects and working with Habitat for Humanity. Wanninkhof, along with another cyclist, was hit by a driver who was distracted by her cellphone and passed away from his injuries. Wanninkhof was in Oklahoma working on a Habitat for Humanity project in Tulsa prior to his death.

According to Bike and Build, Patrick Wanninkhof was a teacher in the Bronx, New York, who felt compelled to take the bike journey after seeing the struggles of his students. Wanninkhof says his bicycle journey would “pale in comparison” to the struggles his students faced on a daily basis.

“I was thrust into the education with little background on the systemic inequities which limit my students. The middle-class ideal of meritocracy instilled me with the misguided belief that all my students needed to do was work harder and success would follow. This mindset was soon challenged when a student told me that she and her mom had been moving between relatives houses every week after they couldn’t pay rent. How on earth could I expect her to give her all to Newton’s Laws when she wasn’t sure where she’d be sleeping that evening?”

Prior to his untimely death, Wanninkhof had completed 2,390 miles of his scheduled 3,987-mile bike journey. His ride began in Portland, Maine and was scheduled to end in Palmdale, California, on August 28. During his cross country journey, Patrick spent nine days working on building projects, including the day he spent in Tulsa working with Habitat for Humanity just prior to the accident.

Oklahoma’s News on 6 reported that 34-year-old driver Sarah Morris was responsible for the crash. Morris admits that when she plowed into Patrick Wanninkhof and Bridget Anderson on their bikes, she was distracted by her cell phone. Wanninkhof died from the injuries he sustained in the accident, and the second cyclist with the Bike and Build group, 22-year-old Bridget Anderson, was airlifted to the OU Medical Center with a leg injury.

The Tulsa Habitat for Humanity organization noted that Wanninkhof was the project leader for the 26-person build over the weekend, which was the ninth such project of his journey. The police report did not indicate if Morris was cited in the accident or if she will face charges in the death of the humanitarian cyclist.

[Image Credit: Bike and Build]

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