Remembering Gashaw Clark
Gashaw was killed biking in Mission Bay April 28.
By Nuala Sawyer and Bryan Goebel
When Gashaw Clark was in high school, he told his father he wanted to be president of the United States. A larger-than-life Harvard grad with a promising future, Gashaw’s young life was cut short after he apparently crashed his bicycle into a car in a Mission Bay intersection.
“The driver had the green light and Gashaw pulled into the intersection and hit the car,” said his father, Dr. Bob Clark, who gave a tearful tribute to his son at last night’s Ride of Silence San Francisco.
Gashaw, 25, was alert and conscious after the crash and initially refused medical help. “My son didn’t want to go to the hospital, but the driver fortunately called an ambulance,” said Clark, a radiologist who trained 50 years ago at San Francisco General Hospital, where his son was taken and died during surgery.
“It was extra hard that they did not call me until after he died. I think I could have saved him,” said Clark, visibly shaken over the death of his son 17 days earlier.
Clark told Human Streets that because his son was talking and alert he may not have been triaged as being a high risk. But he had a broken collarbone that tore an artery and he was bleeding “and it was not readily apparent.”
“When someone’s bleeding the pressure stays pretty stable and then it drops off the cliff,” said Clark. “They did work on him for an entire hour.”
Gashaw was the first cyclist killed on San Francisco’s streets in 2017. The April 28 collision occurred around 11:30 a.m. at Third Street and Mission Bay Boulevard — the first stop for the Ride of Silence, a solemn procession of people on bikes to honor the memories of cyclists killed and injured in San Francisco.
Gashaw was born into an Ethiopian American family in the Bay Area. He caught the language-learning bug at a young age, speaking Amharic with his mother and grandmother, attending a French-speaking high school, and added in Spanish and Portuguese to his repertoire. He excelled academically, and studied government at Harvard University.
According to the Harvard Crimson, Gashaw was president of the Black Pre-Law Association, and a member of the Veritas Financial Group, the Black Men’s Forum, and the Spee Club.
But his high academic and social standing didn’t affect his desire to communicate with those around him, regardless of their background; Diana L. Eck, a Faculty Dean at the school, wrote in an email that “due to his ability to speak French, Spanish, and Portuguese, he developed a warm relationship with many of our dining hall and custodial workers. He helped one of them learn to use a computer; he helped another apply for a child care scholarship.”
Gashaw moved back to the Bay Area after graduating Harvard in 2014, to work at LinkedIn. He later moved on to Oracle, which is where he was working at the time of his death.
Photos of Gashaw, visible on his now-memorialized page and his Instagram account, show a happy, seemingly extroverted man who was constantly surrounded by friends. Comments on a GoFundMe page, created to support his family, offer insight into how deeply he was loved.
“He made Lowell [a house at Harvard] feel more like home, was someone who was genuinely accessible in a culture that made it both cool and easier not to be, and called me out for taking myself too seriously when I needed it,” wrote Anja Nilsson.
“Gashaw. What a light you are! In life and in death, your presence makes us remember to be in community, to love each other, and to accept each other,” wrote Natalie Bitton. “Thank you for your life and your spirit.”
Many comments on the GoFundMe page were written in the numerous languages that Gashaw spoke. “Un abrazo mi hermano. Descansa en paz y llevaremos tu sonrisa en alto,” wrote Rodolfo Diaz.
Bob Clark, who lives in Mill Valley, described his son as “an incredible kid,” and recalled a time when Gashaw was six, and he took him to his Buddhist meditation class.
After the class, Gashaw turned to the teacher and asked: “Are Jesus and Buddha brothers?” To which the teacher replied: “Bob, why don’t you ask questions like that.”
“I said well, he’s a lot smarter than I am,” said Clark.
