Too often someone can be killed in a bicycle accident, and it never makes the headlines.
Or if so, it may appear somewhere far away.
Such was the case last March when a 20-year-old US Army veteran was killed, quietly reported to local media until the story broke yesterday in his home country of Belize.
According to Belize Latest News website, Sergeant Brian George Martinez, 49, was killed in an early morning collision while training for the Holy Saturday cross-country cycling class, an amateur bike race in a day organized every year in the country since 1928.
The news surfaced in a story about her mother donating her cycling gear to the Belize Cycling Federation after her death.
A Facebook post from the organization in April said Martinez was killed in Los Angeles on March 17, just a week after submitting his race entry.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office confirms his death.
Meanwhile, a website for a Los Angeles law firm places the collision at the intersection of East Victoria Street and South Avalon Boulevard in Carson.
He died at the scene.
It is not known how the accident happened, or whether the driver was ticketed or charged. Or even stopped after the crash, for that matter.
In addition to his military career, Martinez worked as a licensed clinical health and mental health therapist in Los Angeles.
This is at least the 46th bicycle fatality in Southern California this year, and the 17th to my knowledge in Los Angeles County.
My deepest condolences and prayers for Brian George Martinez and all his loved ones.
