Lynnwood resident, Ava Ahlander, tragically passed on Monday after she was struck by a scaffolding plank while in Utah. The 23-year-old was in Salt Lake City attending the RedWest Music Festival with friends when the accident occurred on Saturday, October 11. Due to high winds, a 2”x12” board from a construction site near the venue of Utah State Fairpark struck Ahlander in the head.
“It just hit her in the head… in the neck. It was hard. It was fast,” Ava’s uncle, Bobby Ahlander, said to Salt Lake City’s KUTV. “The doctors said after they were able to get her stable and do a CT scan that it basically crushed her brain stem.”
According to officials, the board fell roughly 30 feet from a nearby apartment building, with emergency responders arriving at around 5:15 p.m. before transporting Ahlander to the hospital. Salt Lake City’s KSL5 reported that Ahlander had to be revived, but had lost brain activity. She was kept on life support while family arrived and passed on Monday.
Ahlander’s family set up a GoFundMe fundraiser to cover funeral and medical expenses, which has exceeded the $15,000 goal and currently sits at almost $28,000. The family wrote that “Ava was a beautiful soul whose kindness, warmth, and adventurous spirit touched everyone around her. Even in her passing, Ava continues to give the gift of life to others as an organ donor—a final act of generosity that truly reflects her caring nature and desire to help those in need.”
“The whole thing is devastating,” Bobby Ahlander said. “Yet at the same time, if there is a good outcome from this, it’s that lots and lots of people and families all across the country are going to benefit from Ava’s death.”
In an update to the GoFundMe page on Wednesday, Ben Ahlander wrote:
We are deeply moved by the outpouring of love and support for Ava. Your messages and generous donations have meant more to our family than words can express — thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
Funds will go toward Ava’s funeral services, as well as helping her family with travel and counseling expenses who can’t afford it. We also want to support her friends who were with her that day who bravely called 911 and found a nurse in the crowd to perform CPR. Any leftover funds will be donated to a charity in Ava’s name.
We miss Ava beyond words and are so grateful for the compassion shown by this community. Please consider sharing this page to help spread the word and continue supporting Ava’s family during this difficult time.
“She was an absolute delight. She was so fun. Everybody loved her,” Bobby Ahlander said. “Of course, this came out of nowhere. You don’t ever expect that to happen. It was just an accident.”
Family members shared that Ava was incredibly passionate about music. She was wearing a Post Malone shirt — the headliner for RedWest on that Saturday — that night and was an avid superfan of Noah Kahan — the main performer for Sunday. She went to multiple Kahan performances, with her favorite song being “You’re Gonna Go Far.”
“She had this huge, unrestrained smile, and she always had it anytime you saw her,” Bobby Ahlander said. “That’s how I’ll remember her.”
In an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune, Bobby Ahlander stated that the group had left the venue early as the weather worsened. The music festival eventually evacuated the festival due to the severe weather conditions, but this was apparently after Ahlander and her friends had left.
“They were just kind of tired of the weather and needed a break, so they left to go basically hang out in their car for a while and then go back into the festival. That was the plan.” Ahlander said to The Salt Lake Tribune. “It just hit her. It could have just as easily missed her [and] hit her friend who was holding the door for her.”
RedWest does list a weather policy on their website:
The event is rain or shine. We work closely with local meteorologists throughout the weekend to monitor conditions in real time.
In the event of severe weather, such as lightning or high winds, we have safety protocols and evacuation plans in place to temporarily pause or delay programming until it’s safe to continue.
If weather conditions make it impossible to safely resume, updates will be communicated immediately via email, social media, and our website.
RedWest started a weather delay at roughly 4:09 p.m. and asked those in attendance to evacuate and take shelter. At 5:17 p.m., around the time emergency services reached Ahlander, the festival informed guests that the delay would continue. Finally, at 8:40 p.m., RedWest canceled the programming citing “the safety of our fans, artists, and staff” as the reason.
