Dalai Lama's nephew dies in crash

PALM COAST, Fla. - The Dalai Lama's nephew was smiling, radiating energy as he tackled the first leg of a 300-mile walk to promote Tibet's independence from China. He insisted on finishing the last two miles on his own, even as darkness fell.

"For the cause," Jigme Norbu said, as he had on so many similar journeys before.

Norbu was alone on a dark coastal highway Monday when he was struck and killed by an SUV. He was headed south in the same direction as traffic, following a white line along the side of the road, according to the Highway Patrol. The impact crumpled the vehicle's hood and shattered the front windshield.

Authorities said that the driver, Keith O'Dell, 31, of Palm Coast, swerved but couldn't avoid Norbu. The Highway Patrol was still investigating, but didn't expect any charges. O'Dell and his 5-year-old son were not hurt.

Norbu, 45, had completed at least 21 walks and bike rides, logging more than 7,800 miles in the U.S. and overseas to support freedom for Tibet and to highlight the suffering of its people. He completed his most recent 300-mile trek in December, in Taiwan.

He lived in Bloomington, Ind., where his father had been a professor at Indiana University, and he owned a restaurant that served Tibetan and Indian cuisine.

He had set out Monday with a group of friends, but decided to continue on his own after his companions opted to go to a restaurant in a van. Norbu planned to meet them there.

Yesterday, a vase with seven roses marked the accident site on the side of the two-lane State Highway A1A, where the speed limit is 55 mph and there are no traffic lights.

Among Norbu's walks was a 900-mile trek in 2009 from Indiana to New York. After that four-week journey, his feet were full of painful blisters. He had lost nails and the feeling in one toe.

"But I feel energized because the cause itself energizes me," Norbu, son of the Dalai Lama's late brother, Taktser Rinpoche, told the Associated Press then, after emerging from New Jersey through the Lincoln Tunnel.

That walk marked the 50th anniversary of the failed Tibetan rebellion against Chinese rule that resulted in the exile of his uncle, who is Tibet's top spiritual leader.

Norbu's late father was a high lama who was abbot of a monastery when the Chinese invaded. The brothers fled into exile following the 1959 uprising.

Rinpoche, who died in September 2008 at 86, was a professor of Tibetan studies at Indiana University, in Bloomington, while serving as the Dalai Lama's U.S. representative.

In northern India, officials at the Dalai Lama's office in Dharmsala could not immediately be reached, and the Tibetan government-in-exile had not commented as of late yesterday.

Norbu talked about his relationship with his uncle in an interview with the Chicago Tribune published in 1995.

"It's hard sometimes," Norbu told the newspaper. "I don't get next to him that often. I can't just hug him or anything like that. You don't do things like that. Sure, I have an audience with him. Sure, I see him. I respect him to the point where if I'm in India, I don't go see him every day. He's got more important things to do. He's got six million Tibetans to worry about."

The Dalai Lama has visited Bloomington several times. The city about 50 miles southwest of Indianapolis is home to the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center and Kumbum Chamtse Ling Temple.