David Rodebaugh
New York, d. 12.August.2015, killed in
traffic on the way home from work on July 23, 2015.
New York City bike messenger Dave Rodebaugh passed away on August
12, 2015 after a bike crash on July 23, 2015. Dave was a member of
the Lock Foot Posi and he won the 2014 Red Bull Mini Drome race.
Dave's family donated his organs for transplant and his face was
transplanted on to Patrick Hardison, a firefighter from Mississippi.
"Another fallen brother lockfoot famila
checkin out today. So many good rides and rad times. If you ever met
this man, you would remember because he always been keepin it 100.
Ride in paradise Dave, dumpin a
keg out for yah today." - Lock
Foot Posi
"We just received some heartbreaking news that Ohio-native and New
York local David Rodebaugh has passed due to complications from a
head injury. Dave was known throughout the Columbus and NYC circles
as a blatant shredder with a lack of fear and an appetite for speed.
Not only will he be missed in the BMX scene but also in the track
bike world, most notably for winning Red Bull’s Minidrome event in
Brooklyn last year. If there’s one thing that Dave taught us, it’s
to live fast and pedal faster. Rest easy brother." - ScottMarceau,
The Come Up
New York Magazine wrote an extensive piece
on Dave Rodebaugh's face transplant to Patrick Hardison
How One Man's Face Became Another Man's Face
For the moment, the face belongs to no one. It floats in a bowl of
icy, hemodynamic preserving solution, paused midway on its journey
from one operating room to another, from a 26-year-old Brooklyn bike
mechanic who’d been declared brain-dead 48 hours earlier to a
41-year-old Mississippi fireman whose face had burned off in a blaze
14 years ago. The mechanic’s face, though nearly flat, still bears a
few reminders of its former owner: a stubble of dark-blond hair,
pierced ears, a hook-shaped scar at the spot where surgeons had
entered his skull trying to save his life. A surgeon reaches his
gloved hands into the blood-tinged liquid and kneads the face,
draining the last of the mechanic’s blood. Then he lifts the face up
to a camera, showing off his handiwork. As he raises it, it seems to
inflate and take the shape of a face again, one that no longer
resembles the cyclist. The forehead is shorter, the cheeks puffier.
The lips have fallen into a crescent, as if smiling. The face looks
like it will when, an hour later, it is fitted over the raw skull of
the fireman waiting in the next room.
Read
the full article at NYMAG
