A 24-year-old Norwegian man rollerblading across the United States was killed in Kansas after an 82-year-old woman allegedly struck him with her SUV and left the scene.
Joachim Lanham was on the 22nd day of a cross-country journey from New York to Los Angeles when an off-duty first responder found him critically injured in a roadside ditch in Salina, roughly 175 miles from Kansas City, on Sept. 5, the Wichita Eagle reported Monday.
Lanham was taken to Salina Regional Health Center before being transferred to the intensive care unit at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita.
He remained in a medically induced coma for six days and died from his injuries on Sept. 11.
In a post on Instagram, Lanham’s family said his brother Michael stayed at his side, “holding his hand throughout the week and at the very end.”
The Saline County Sheriff’s Office said the driver came forward while deputies were investigating the crash site.
Authorities told KSAL that the 82-year-old woman said she had been driving a 2013 Ford Edge SUV westbound on Country Club Road.
She told investigators she believed she had struck something and turned around to inspect the area. After seeing nothing, she continued driving home.
Lt. Scott Trembley of the Saline County Sheriff’s Office said the woman noticed damage to her vehicle after returning home and called a friend, who accompanied her back to the scene.
“She knew she struck something. She just wasn’t sure what,” Trembley told the Wichita Eagle.
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The case has been referred to the Saline County Attorney’s Office, which will decide whether the driver faces charges, according to the sheriff’s office.
Only 40 minutes before the crash, Lanham had spoken with his parents by phone and told them how much long-distance rollerblading meant to him, his family said.
Earlier that day, he posted a video of himself skating along Kansas roads that appeared largely empty.
“I’m in Kansas baby, the heatwave has been kicking my ass, I thought I knew what hot, but nothing like this,” he wrote in the caption.
“My weather forecast app keeps telling me to check up on my loved ones and to seek refuge, but I’m on a mission. Mother nature will definitely slow me down but I will succeed.”
Earlier this year, Lanham completed a skate across Australia covering more than 3,665 miles.
“We as his family are so thankful for all the support you have given him on his wild adventures,” his family wrote in a message to his followers.
“They meant the world to him.”
His family also released the final video Lanham recorded before the crash, showing a butterfly flapping its wings on his foot.