On August 25, 2022, U.S. Diplomat, mother of two, and wife, Sarah (Debbink) Langenkamp, was tragically killed while riding home from her sons’ new elementary school in Bethesda, Maryland.
Sarah had just returned in July to the United States from Ukraine, where she led a team managing some of the U.S. government’s most sensitive and important priorities there, including helping reform Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions, holding Russia accountable for war crimes, and provision of assistance to Ukraine’s national police and border guard.
An avid cyclist, Sarah had communited by bike all over the world. On August 25, after completing a 24-mile roundtrip ride to work in downtown Washington, D.C., she was heading home from her children’s new elementary school when her phone’s map app took her on an unprotected bike lane on Bethesda’s River Road — a busy commercial route where a bike lane competes with cars and industrial traffic. It was there where she was hit and killed by a flatbed truck making a right turn into a parking lot. Sarah, who had been evacuated from Ukraine for her safety, was killed less than a month after her arrival in the Washington area.
Sarah left behind her two boys and her husband, Dan.