A grieving family yesterday found it could rely on the kindness of Internet strangers.
Sarah Burke, a Canadian skier who took home five Olympic medals, passed away yesterday due to injuries incurred on January 10 in a skiing accident in Utah.
Her $200,000 hospital bill could have posed a burden on her family. (While the Olympics provide insurance for athletes while they train, the accident was in the off-season.)
Online donors stepped in and raised more than $200,000 in less than 24 hours.
Burke’s agent, Michael Spencer, set up a donation page on Give Forward, which has already raised $194,000. After Give Forward experienced “unprecedented traffic,” according to WePay, a payments processor, that company set up an auxiliary donation page. The WePay page has collected $46,000 for Burke’s family by press time.
On Thursday evening, following her death, Sarah Burke was a trending topic worldwide on Twitter. According to social search engine Topsy, her name was tweeted more than 10,000 times, along with countless news articles about her death.
Zachary Moxley, a 14-year-old amateur skiing videographer, posted a tribute to Burke on Vimeo. It’s already been viewed more than 100,000 times.
While the online community raised money for Burke’s bills, her sponsor, Monster Energy Drinks, remained silent until late Friday afternoon, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Burke’s fans.
“Why isn’t @MonsterEnergy paying #SarahBurke‘s medical bill? Where’s their insurance & support now?” tweeted three-time Olympic gold medal rowing champion Marnie McBean. Her tweet was shared hundreds of times.
In fact, some of Burke fans were so outraged, they started tweeting the hashtag #boycottmonsterenergy.
Monster aimed to head that reaction off that with a tardy if heartfelt eulogy in which the company stated it was “committed to helping [Burke’s family] financially.” But some still aren’t satisfied:
“@MonsterEnergy Is the company paying ALL of Sarah’s medical costs? That is the only statement that needs to be made. #stepup,” tweeted Tom Howden in response.
