A 53-year-old woman, who was injured in a motorcycle crash Saturday died at the hospital Monday, making her the seventh person to die during the 10-day Bike Week event held in Daytona Beach.
In addition to the deaths, close to 100 patients admitted to the trauma center at Halifax Health Medical Center were related to Bike Week, according to a preliminary report released by the hospital Wednesday.
Halifax Health Medical Center spokesman John Guthrie had said, prior to the release of the statistics: “It may be a record-breaking week, unfortunately.”
More people were killed in accidents involving motorcycles during this year’s Bike Week compared to 2020’s event where six people lost their lives. One person died during 2019’s Bike Week, according to News-Journal research.
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More:FHP: Motorcyclist killed in Ormond crash; 3rd fatality of Bike WeekAccording to the report from Halifax Health Medical Center, which has the only trauma center serving Volusia and Flagler counties, 150 trauma patients were brought to the hospital during Bike Week, which ran officially from March 5-14.
Out of those, 91 of them were people brought in with injuries related to Bike Week, hospital authorities said.
A look inside Bike Week crash injury numbers
According to a five-year comparison made by the hospital, 2021 saw a record-breaking number of trauma patients, a total of 91, related to Bike Week.
The hospital attended to 58 trauma patients in 2020, 61 in 2019, 62 in 2018 and 68 in 2017, the report shows.
“This number compares with an average of 62 admissions over the last four years. The trauma team was activated 97 times in the 10-day period,” according to the news release from the hospital.
Motorcycle passengers accounted for 14 of the admissions, and less than half of the 91 trauma cases, which numbered 39, were wearing helmets at the time of the crashes, hospital authorities said.
“Our community saw an unusual number of total patients needing trauma care during Bike Week,” said Lindsay Martin, Registered Nurse and Director of Nursing, according to the release.
Martin said that the Bike Week incidents were “more than the usual amount of accidents at home and work places.”
“At one point we had four patients needing trauma care at the same time,” Martin said.
Biker fatalities in Port Orange, Ormond Beach and Daytona Beach
By the time Bike Week officially ended this past Sunday, the Florida Highway Patrol, Port Orange, Ormond Beach and Daytona Beach police departments all reported motorcycle crashes with fatalities in their jurisdictions.
Daytona Beach on Wednesday reported the seventh death in the city. On Saturday, police responded to the 500 block of South Nova Road, where they found a woman and the motorcycle driver, a 54-year-old St. Augustine man, in the roadway, police spokesman Messod Bendayan said.
The driver of the motorcycle, a black 2015 Harley-Davidson Street Glide, told police that he and the woman, who was a passenger, were southbound on Nova Road when a vehicle made a U-Turn in front of them.
The driver said he had to lay the motorcycle down on the ground to avoid a direct collision and they were thrown from the motorcycle, investigators said.
Both the woman and the man were taken to Halifax, where the woman died, Bendayan said.
Looking back at the deadly motorcycle crashes
Daytona Beach police also reported a motorcycle crash death Sunday, which claimed the fifth person to die during Bike Week. The victim was 39-year-old woman from Seabrook, New Hampshire. The woman was killed when a vehicle rear ended the motorcycle on which she was a passenger, pinning the machine under and knocking her off it, police said.
The driver of the motorcycle, an 18-year-old man from Durand, Illinois was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries, police said.
At 12:50 a.m. Monday, shortly after Bike Week officially ended, motorists found a biker dead in the roadway in the 300 block of Airport Road, Ormond Beach police said.
The deceased man was Periat Florentin, 42, of Ormond Beach, the sixth Bike Week fatality.
More:Police: Motorcyclist killed in Port Orange crash early Wednesday
More:New Smyrna Beach motorcyclist killed when he lost control of motorcycle
More:Report: Motorcyclist seriously injured in Daytona after crash with Volusia school bus
The first Bike Week death of 2021 occurred on Pioneer Trail and Cypress Springs Parkway near New Smyrna Beach on March 5, the first day of event. A 57-year-old New Smyrna Beach man lost his life when he lost control of his motorcycle and crashed, the Florida Highway Patrol said.
On March 10, a 33-year-old rider was killed when his motorcycle crashed at Country Lane and Taylor Road in Port Orange, police said.
The third motorcycle crash fatality occurred on Interstate 95 near Ormond Beach on March 11.
A 59-year-old man from Signal Hill, California, was killed. The rider was northbound on I-95 when his motorcycle ran off the highway and rolled over. The rider was taken to Halifax Health Medical Center, where he died, troopers said.
The fourth death of Bike Week occurred Sunday night in Port Orange, the second motorcycle fatality that police worked in their city.
The fourth death was a South Carolina man, Isaac Ferguson, who was killed when his motorcycle crashed with a vehicle at the intersection of Nova Road and Sleepy Hollow Drive in Port Orange on Sunday at 7:22 p.m., police said.
Ferguson was transported to Halifax, where he died, Port Orange traffic homicide investigators said.
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