A woman went for a run that became a fight for survival after a 600-pound bench shelter smashed into her. Katie Watt had been running on Bates College's track when the shelter went airborne. It smacked right into her.
The incident happened in October 2024. It left the woman with a skull fracture and brain bleeding.
"But I remember just being so disoriented and so terrified and also in so much pain and thinking like, 'I'm only 21, I don't want to die. I have so much left of my life to live,'" Watt told PEOPLE. "I just had no idea what was wrong with me."
"I was a very busy person," she also says. "I loved to fill my days with things that I found productive. Or brought me joy. I wake up and have a very set amount of cognitive stamina or brain energy expenditure that I can do."
Woman Hit By Bench Shelter
According to Watt, the college had installed two nearly 600-pound bench shelters near the track field. She argued that the college didn't follow the guidelines of keeping the shelter secured.
"I vaguely remember getting loaded into a helicopter," she also told PEOPLE. "After that, I'm assuming I was unconscious again. And all of these memories immediately after the fact are super jumbled...It's more like the emotions of pure terror, not knowing what was happening and thinking I was gonna die."
After the incident, she "has suffered cognitive impairment, emotional disturbance, headaches, and neurological deficits, and continues to experience life-changing symptoms."
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Bates College issued the following statement.
"We acknowledge that this unfortunate accident happened on our campus in October 2024," the spokesperson wrote. "Bates did provide support — both in the moment and following the incident — and we are pleased that Katie was able to return to her studies and graduate on time and with honors in May 2025. We continue to wish her well in her new research career at Massachusetts General Hospital."
