WILMINGTON, Del. (USA TODAY) Restaurateur Matt Haley, who received the James Beard Humanitarian of the Year Award this year, died from injuries suffered from a motorcycle accident in Ladakh, his business partner Scott Kammerer said Wednesday.
Haley, who owned eight popular restaurants in Delaware’s beach resort towns and had a total of 25 operations in at least four states, was in the country for the start of a six-week trek through northwestern India and eventually Nepal where he planned to deliver stoves to a Nepali village.
According to Kammerer, Haley was driving a motorcycle in the mountains near Leh, around 4 p.m. Monday when he collided with a truck. He was taken to a remote hospital, unconscious, and was in the hospital’s intensive care unit.
Kammerer said Haley died at about 11:25 p.m. while being transported by a medical jet from Leh to a hospital in New Delhi.
“The entire team at the Matt Haley Companies is incredibly saddened by this huge loss,” said Kammerer, president and COO of the Matt Haley Companies.
Haley’s Delaware restaurants include Lupo di Mare and Papa Grande’s, both in Rehoboth, Fish On in Lewes, NorthEast Kitchen in Ocean View, Matt’s Fish Camp and Bluecoast, both in Bethany Beach, and Catch 54 and Papa Grande’s in Fenwick Island.
The 53-year-old received the James Beard Humanitarian award in May at a star-studded ceremony at New York’s Lincoln Center.
Haley was recognized for his good deeds in Delaware and around the world. His moving speech about his love of Delaware and the restaurant community that embraced him after he overcame addiction to drugs and alcohol earned him a standing ovation.
“I’m a member of the most compassionate, caring industry in the world. There’s no other industry that would have been there for me. Everybody shut their door on me when I got out of prison 20 years ago,” Haley said after receiving his Beard medal, which he gave to his ailing mother.
Haley, who had been traveling to India and Nepal since 2011, was with about eight or nine other motorcycle riders and international film-maker and motorcycle expert Guarav Jani.
During the trip, Haley posted on his Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter accounts about the potential risks of the roadways he was traveling.
On Aug. 11, he wrote on Facebook he would be traveling “on the highest and, some say, most dangerous roads in the world.”
The news of Haley’s death has stunned friends and restaurant colleagues.
“He lived the life of 50 people,” said his longtime publicist Stacey Inglis. “He did so much, for so many. He just ate life every day.”
The James Beard Foundation said Wednesday videos of Haley’s speech and of his life story that played at the New York ceremony in May are among the most viewed videos on its website.
“We are all so sad,” Beard Foundation resident Susan Ungaro said in a phone interview Wednesday afternoon. “He was just amazing. He touched the lives of thousands of people, not just in Delaware, but around the world.”
Sam Calagione, founder and president of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Delaware, also expressed sadness over Haley’s death.
“Matt Haley was not only a great restaurateur but a great philanthropist and he touched a lot of people not just locally but globally,” Calagione said.
“I’ll just remember him for being innovative, competitive and really motivated to better the perception of the southern Delaware culinary world. He was a real leader down here. Very diverse and creative in terms of what he did with restaurants and that made everybody raise their game.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2014/08/20/restaurateur-dies-from-crash-injuries/14362791/
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