VERMILION, Ohio (WOIO) - An entire community is still struggling to process the loss of Merik Austin Bendig, who died last week in a moped accident.

“I can fix anything, and I couldn’t fix my son,” Marc Bendig, Merik’s father, said in an interview with 19 News, surrounded by dozens of Merik’s friends and family.

According to the family, Merik’s crash happened last Tuesday, when a driver struck the 20-year-old while pulling into a business on Liberty Avenue.

It was a moment Marc will never forget: “The hardest thing I ever had to do was pull the sheet from over his face, and I wasn’t putting him to sleep in his bed.”

Friends and family explained Merik was ‘maker’, often working on motorcycles and bicycles only to gift them to people he met. “He would just give them away, for no reason,”

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