The fifth-floor balcony of Unit 405 at 2020 Kittredge Street in downtown Berkeley collapsed in the early hours of June 16th, 2015, and a group of people standing on it fell to the street below.
Five Irish students, Eoghan Culligan, Niccolai Schuster, Lorcán Miller, Eimear Walsh, Olivia Burke, and Olivia’s Irish-American cousin, Ashley Donohoe, all in their early 20s, died and seven others were injured. The group was celebrating the 21st birthday of Aoife Beary, who survived with serious injuries, but died six years later on January 1st, 2022, at Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, after suffering a stroke.
Dry rot was a contributing factor in the structural failure, and balconies have since been removed from the building, known as Library Gardens. Lawsuits against the building’s owner and the property management company were settled in 2017.
