loop was part of the second-day ride from Storm Lake to Fort Dodge. Also, the 43rd ride was the first since the initial ride in 1973 to start in Sioux City and end in Davenport. Notable incidents Deaths Over the first 42 years of the ride (through 2014), 30 deaths of ride participants or volunteers have officially occurred during the week of RAGBRAI because of accidents or injuries suffered on the ride. Although the event began in 1973, the first death did not occur until RAGBRAI XII in 1984. Many of the deaths were due to heart attacks that riders suffered while resting. However, in Sheldon on the first night of the 2005 ride, a weather-related fatality occurred as Michael Thomas Burke (a native of Donnellson, Iowa and an industrial engineering graduate from the University of Iowa, who was living in New York City) died when a storm caused a tree limb to fall on him as he was sleeping in a tent. Only a few deaths resulted from injuries sustained while actually riding on bicycles. The first was in 1987, when 19-year-old John Boyle of Rockwell City fell under the wheels of a flatbed trailer. On Monday, July 30, 2007, at 12:52 pm, a Waterloo man, who was rescued from the Wapsipinicon River in Independence, subsequently died; 62-year-old Rich Droste had been participating in RAGBRAI, which made an overnight stop in Independence on Thursday. Droste was swimming in the Wapsi when he apparently got caught in the current upstream from the dam. On July 25, 2009, Donald D. Myers from Rolla, Missouri, died of injuries sustained in a crash at the bottom of the hill near Geode Lake dam at Geode State Park. On July 30, 2010, Stephen Briggs of Waverly, Iowa died after his bike clipped the tire of another bike and he was thrown from his bike. After Briggs' death, no more fatalities occurred until 2014, when on Monday, July 21, Tom Teesdale, 62, of West Branch died of a heart attack between Terril and Graettinger, and on Wednesday, July 23, George 'Frank' Brinkerhoff of Sioux City died of natural causes and was found dead in his tent Thursday morning. On Sunday, July 24, 2016, at the 2-mile marker on US Highway 34 near Glenwood, Wayne Ezell, 72, of Jacksonville, Florida, was westbound when a pickup truck driven by Robb Philippus, 34, of Glenwood, hit him from