{"id":220620,"date":"2026-06-16T18:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T18:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/220620\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T18:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T18:13:11","slug":"family-files-wrongful-death-lawsuit-against-driver-who-fatally-struck-chop-doctor-on-bike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/220620\/","title":{"rendered":"Family files wrongful death lawsuit against driver who fatally struck CHOP doctor on bike"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 The family of a Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia doctor who was killed two years ago while riding her bike in Center City has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the drunk driver who hit her.<\/p>\n<p>Attorneys for the parents of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.audacy.com\/kywnewsradio\/topic\/barbara-friedes\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Barbara Friedes<\/a> filed the lawsuit against Michael Vahey, who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.audacy.com\/kywnewsradio\/news\/local\/driver-pleads-guilty-struck-killed-chop-doctor-barbara-friedes-bike\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">pleaded guilty last summer<\/a> to several charges, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.audacy.com\/kywnewsradio\/news\/local\/driver-charged-vehicular-homicide-dui-bicycle-crash-chop-doctor\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">homicide by vehicle<\/a>, third-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and other related charges.<\/p>\n<p>On <a href=\"https:\/\/www.audacy.com\/kywnewsradio\/news\/local\/pedestrians-car-crashes-woman-killed-bike-rittenhouse-square\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">July 17, 2024<\/a>, Friedes was in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.audacy.com\/kywnewsradio\/news\/local\/philly-bike-community-loop-center-city-harry-fenton-killed-fairmount-hit-and-run\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">protected bike lane<\/a> on Spruce Street and wearing a helmet when she was struck and killed. The impact of Vahey\u2019s car threw her about 150 feet.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators said Vahey had veered into the bike lane at about 60 mph. His blood-alcohol level was .16 \u2014 twice the legal limit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"e98eb\" data-rm-shortcode-id=\"34c0b59588e53783bb92ace8420267dc\" data-rm-shortcode-name=\"rebelmouse-image\" class=\"rm-shortcode rm-lazyloadable-image \" lazy-loadable=\"true\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%201600%20900'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" data-runner-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/barbara-friedes.png\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" alt=\"Barbara Friedes\"\/>             Provided by Barbara Friedes         <\/p>\n<p>Friedes, an oncology doctor at CHOP, was 30 years old.<\/p>\n<p>Seventy-year-old Vahey was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.audacy.com\/kywnewsradio\/news\/local\/drunk-driver-sentenced-hit-killed-chop-doctor-barbara-friedes-bike\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">sentenced last year<\/a> to six to 20 years behind bars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 The family of a Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia doctor who was killed two years&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96066,8036,1540,36313,347,18837,69,71,70,81122],"class_list":["post-220620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-barbara-friedes","tag-biking","tag-car-crash","tag-chop","tag-crash","tag-dui","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-wrongful-death-lawsuit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}