Officials verified that a guy was unintentionally murdered at a high school track and field event in Colorado on Sunday morning after a competitor’s thrown hammer weight struck him after clearing barriers.
The spectator was recognized by the El Paso County Coroner’s Office as 57-year-old Wade Langston.
According to a statement from the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs, Langston was at a meet when the hammer—a weight on a grip that is swung in a circular motion and then thrown—went into the audience instead of the field at around 9:30 a.m.
A member of the audience was killed when a hammer thrown by a competitor struck him after it cleared certified barriers during a club sports track and field meet for high school students from all over Colorado at the Mountain Lion Fieldhouse on the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs campus, according to a statement from the university.
To help Langston’s family, Colorado United Track Club head coach Erik Huffman launched an internet fundraising initiative.
One of the guys on the Colorado United team had a father named Langston, Huffman said.
The fundraiser website read, “The Colorado United Track Club, our coaches, and our helpers would like to extend our deepest condolences to the Langston Family,” Huffman wrote.
Wade’s nephew-in-law, Tamara Rocha, has started another fundraising drive to help Wade’s son, a high school senior, pay for college.
“Wade was a devoted husband, loving father, cherished brother and brother-in-law, fun uncle, and an even more fun great-uncle,” she stated.
After responding to the scene and administering medical attention, police and the Colorado Springs Fire Department “ultimately pronounced the audience member dead at the scene.”
UCCS Chancellor Jennifer Sobanet said in the statement, “We are devastated by this terrible accident and are committed to helping everyone involved.”
The track and field competition was one of three events in a series that started on December 15 of last year and were all hosted on the UCCS campus.