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SANTA CRUZ, Calif.- "He was a great active natural leader. He was a beautiful
person and I say so because I got to be his sister and we were
extremely close," said Meli Burgueno.
When you talk to her, it's obvious the raw emotion Meli still feels about her brother's accident a year ago Friday, "Iit was terrible...Not something you want to think about too often, just that powerful."
But she came to Friday's rally at UC Santa Cruz, back to the "Great Meadow" bike path where Adrian was killed, for a very specific reason.
"We certainly don't want that to go unnoticed in the bike community as well as the student body."
Adrian Burgueno was a senior at UC Santa Cruz and an experienced cyclist, even a part of the Banana Slugs team, when he rode the popular bike path after a night class. His family said he was wearing a helmet and was taking precautions when he crashed. Adrian was flown to a Bay Area hospital where he died a few days later. Adrian's family is suing UCSC claming this wasn't the first bad accident and improvements to the path should've been made.
"It was a very substantial downhill grade and slope, a very sharp curve that Adrian was trying to navigate at the time he went off the bike and lost his life...The lack of reflective striping...The lack of lighting for the bike path...From what I understand there were some signs that were put that up discussed the accident history, but that there wasn't much more than that," said the family attorney Paul Matiasic.
UCSC said it hasn't seen the lawsuit yet but spokesperson Jim Burns did say, "We have
posted signs warning riders of the dangers of excessive speed, and we've posted signs warning riders to not use the bike path at night. But, really, none of that changes the very tragic fact that, in this particular bike accident, a young person lost his life. And we're
very, very sad about that."
Burgueno said neither her brother's death nor the death of another cyclist has forced the university to make any sort of changes to this bike path. She hopes this lawsuit will.
"We certainly don't want this to happen again; for anyone to experience this loss in that way especially when life is so much ahead of you."
Easton-Bell Sports, Inc., the company who made the helmet Adrian had on when he crashed, is also named in the lawsuit.
