Irish student who survived 2015 Berkeley balcony collapse dies at age 27

A 27 year-old woman who suffered serious brain injuries when a balcony collapsed during her 21st birthday and killed six of her friends has died of a stroke almost seven years on.   

Aoife Beary from Blackrock, south Dublin, was taken to Beaumont Hospital in Dublin on Wednesday after she suffered a stroke. She succumbed to her illness on Saturday. 

Six of Beary’s friends died while they celebrated her 21st birthday party in the Library Gardens apartment in Berkeley, California, on June 16, 2015 after a fifth floor balcony they were standing on collapsed. 

Beary, who after the tragedy advocated for building companies to release public safety records, was one of the seven survivors of the incident.  

The group of students were in the US as part of a popular J-1 summer working visas program, which sees thousands of young Irish people flock to the United States annually. 

Beary suffered life-threatening injuries such as brain trauma, broken bones and organ lacerations and underwent a lengthy recovery in California and back home in Ireland that included an open heart surgery. 

It is unclear if her death was related to injuries she sustained at the 2015 incident. 

Angela and Aoife Beary of Dublin, Ireland with Vice Consul Kevin Byrne of the Irish Consulate General as state lawmakers in the Assembly Appropriations Committee discuss SB465 in Sacramento, California on August 10, 2016

The fifth floor balcony is pictured shortly after the June 2016 collapse which killed six and injured seven others 

In recent years, Beary had pursued studies at Oxford Brookes University in England. 

At the time of the accident, she was studying for a pharmacology degree at the University of California, Davis.   

In August 2016, Beary told politicians before the California state legislature that her injuries had forced her to pause her education, and she had lost her independence.  

‘Some of my injuries will be with me for the rest of my life,’ she said at the time. ‘My life has been changed forever.’ 

Berkeley tragedy survivor Aoife Beary with One Direction 

Olivia Burke, Eoghan Culligan, Niccolai Schuster, Lorcan Miller, Eimear Walsh, all 21 from Ireland, and Irish-American Ashley Donohoe, 22, died when the balcony collapsed under the weight of 13 people

‘Now my birthday will always be their anniversary,’ she added about her friends’ tragic deaths. 

Before her death on Saturday, Beary had pushed for building companies to release public safety records to the California’s building regulator, The Irish Times reported. 

Olivia Burke, Eoghan Culligan, Niccolai Schuster, Lorcan Miller, Eimear Walsh, all 21 from Ireland, and Irish-American Ashley Donohoe, 22, died when the balcony collapsed under the weight of 13 people.    

Aoife with Stanford Medical staff at Berkeley in California, America

The apartment balconies were designed as ‘decoration’ more than as a sturdy place for large groups of people to sta

Officials later revealed the wooden beams supporting the balcony were water-damaged and rotten

Niall Murray, Sean Fahey, Conor Flynn and Jack Halpin and Clodagh Cogley, Hannah Walters and Beary survived the accident. 

The foreign students, the majority of whom were from south Dublin, were visiting Berkeley, California, on the popular J1 working visa program, which attracts thousands of Irish students annually. 

The apartment balconies were designed as ‘decoration’ more than as a sturdy place for large groups of people to stand, according to the committee which approved the Library Gardens complex in 2001. 

The apartment in the Library Gardens complex was a wood-frame construction, and the balcony was cantilevered out from the building, with no additional support beneath. 

Officials later revealed the wooden beams supporting the balcony were water-damaged and rotten.