www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=25343
Corinne Crawford, a UC Berkeley graduate student in the classics department, died Tuesday evening after being taken off life support following a collision with a vehicle Sunday. Crawford, who was a member of the Cal Cycling team, was returning from a bike ride to Mt Diablo with teammate Jan Christian Claussen when both were struck by a vehicle at the intersection of Olympic Boulevard and Newell Avenue in Walnut Creek, said Lauren Tompkins, a captain on the cycling team and Crawford's friend. Crawford was taken to the John Muir Medical Center Intensive Care Unit in Walnut Creek, where her family kept her on life support long enough to donate her organs to others in need. Claussen suffered a concussion and several abrasions as a result of the accident but returned home from the hospital the same day. Both riders were wearing helmets, but the blunt-force trauma to Crawford's head was too strong for a standard bicycle helmet to withstand, said Officer Scott Yox, public affairs officer for the California Highway Patrol. The two were struck by a 2002 Cadillac driven by Clyde Brenner, a 74-year-old man from Walnut Creek, Yox said. Police questioned Brenner at the scene and ruled out the possibility that he had been driving under the influence. According to Yox, Brenner said he saw a shadow of an object in the corner of his eye and swerved to avoid the object, hitting the two cyclists, who were in a crosswalk. Yox said the entire incident will undergo an investigation before police consider any action against Brenner. Tompkins said that Crawford, who frequently wrote post-race reports for the cycling team, had an "inexhaustible amount of energy" and was "an extremely hard worker on the team." "She was the quintessential student-athlete," Tompkins said. Crawford was a GSI in Latin and Greek for the classics department and was a lecturer for a class on Roman civilization this summer, according to Curtis Dozier, a fellow graduate student in the classics department. John Ferrari, acting chair of the classics department for the summer, said Crawford's class is being taken over by a professor in the department. Ferrari also said that Leslie Kurke, chair of the classics department, held an open house at her residence Tuesday night in honor of Crawford. According to Ferrari, Crawford was scheduled to go to a conference in Oslo, Norway to present a paper on Indo-European linguistics. Crawford was also involved in the UC Martial Arts Program for approximately three years and was a red belt in yongmudo, a form of Korean self-defense, said her instructor Norman Link. He said Crawford was set to take black belt exams before her death. Both the cycling team and the UC Martial Arts Program hosted a memorial dinner last night. The cycling team will also host an open bicycle ride in Crawford's memory at 9:30 am Saturday from Sproul Plaza to Walnut Creek, where they will leave flowers at the site of the accident.
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