DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – A 29-year-old Daytona Beach man has died days after he was hit by a Volusia County school bus while riding his motorcycle, according to police.
Daytona Beach police said Seth Whitmer died Wednesday, eight days after he was hit by the bus at the intersection of North Nova Road and Madison Avenue.
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Witnesses called dispatchers at 3:46 p.m. on March 9 to report that a motorcyclist had crashed into the bus inside the intersection and was thrown from the motorcycle, police said. Investigators said Whitmer was heading south on Nova Road when he ran a red light at the Madison Avenue intersection then struck the tire and tire rim on the front driver’s side of the bus as it was turning north on Nova Road from the eastbound side of Madison Avenue.
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Whitmer, who was wearing a helmet at the time, suffered severe injuries and was taken to Halifax Health Medical Center as a trauma alert in critical condition following the crash, officials said.
Police said 14 passengers were on the bus, which had picked them up from Mainland High School. No one on the bus was injured, according to police.
Daytona Beach police said Whitmer’s death marks the ninth fatal crash reported in Daytona Beach for 2021 and the sixth reported in Daytona Beach during Bike Week 2021. Of the Bike Week fatalities, three of them involved motorcycles and three did not, according to police.
Halifax Health officials said they saw a record number of trauma patients during this year’s Bike Week.
Bike Week began March 5 and ran through March 14. In that same 10-day period, 150 trauma patients were received by Halifax Health, hospital officials said on Wednesday upon releasing preliminary data. Of those admissions, numbers show 91 were related to Bike Week, compared to an average of 62 admissions during the past four years.
“Our community saw an unusual number of total patients needing trauma care during Bike Week,” RN and director of nursing Lindsay Martin said. “We had 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.”
The numbers included in Wednesday’s report were preliminary and data will not be finalized until all patients have been discharged, hospital officials noted in their news release.
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