Friends and family are mourning the death of Taylor Kahle, a Southern California resident who died in a freak accident just days before her 30th birthday.
According to the San Diego Tribune, Kahle was killed at around 7:25 on Sunday night when an apparently suicidal man jumped from the ninth floor of a parking garage and landed on her. Kahle was reportedly hit while walking with her date in the East Village neighborhood. Authorities say Kahle, who was a senior event manager at McFarlane Promotions, died at the scene about 15 minutes after she was struck.
The county Medical Examiner’s Office said the man who plunged from the building appeared to be in his 20s, and was spotted entering the parking garage before he was seen hanging from a balcony. He was transported to the UC San Diego Medical Center, and was pronounced dead less than an hour after he jumped.
The man who was walking with Kahle was reportedly uninjured.
“I just want people to know she is an incredible person. This tragedy does not define her,” Kahle’s boss, Laurel McFarlane, told CBS 8. “I encouraged her, I pushed her in things she didn’t always want to, but it was incredible to watch this young lady blossom into this beautiful person.”
McFarlene told the network Kahle began working for her promotions company eight years ago as an intern. She said Kahle had grown up in San Diego and had moved to Chicago for a brief period, before returning to her hometown to take care of her father as he recovered from surgery.
“It was her and her dad and it just gives you one person to love you with all your heart,” McFarlene said. “To give you courage and strength and her dad was that for her and I was too and she was for me.”