Pennsylvania man dies of injuries he received 50 years ago

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published 27 August 2015

On July 8, 1965, Richard Albright was hit by a car in Allentown, Pennsylvania. On Aug. 24, 2015, he died from his injuries.

Albright was 8 years old when he was struck by a vehicle while walking, The Morning Call reports. Newspaper accounts from the time say he suffered severe head injuries, two broken legs, scrapes, and bruises. Another boy was also hit by the car, but only sustained minor injuries.

While it's relatively rare for someone to die from 50-year-old injuries, it's not completely unprecedented, First Deputy Coroner Eric Minnich told The Morning Call. "We looked pretty far to see the chain of events," he said. "He was a quadriplegic secondary to this pedestrian accident. He was still receiving treatment for injuries received 50 years earlier. This required a lifetime of treatment and basically he was paralyzed. This is something that he never achieved a full recovery from."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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