Published: 12 January 2012
by TOM FOOT

A CYCLIST found unconscious in a Camden Street is fighting for his life in hospital as his family and medical experts puzzle over the mystery of how he got there.

The devastated family of Alpha Kabeja are hoping he will come round and reveal how he came to be found lying, with his crumpled bike on top of him, in Camden Street around 4pm on New Year’s Day.

The family – who are taking turns in a 24-hour vigil by his bedside in University College Hospital – have been warned he may be severely brain damaged.

The 29-year-old electrician and band manager, who lives in Crowndale Road, Somers Town, was found by a passer-by at the junction of St Michael’s Close without any cuts or bruises on his body.

There are no witnesses and the police are not investigating.

His mother Patricia said: “They found him with the bike on top of him.

But if he fell off his bike, why are there no marks on his body?

We are told the injuries are not matching the incident.

It doesn’t add up. We just want to know what happened.”

In the absence of a police investigation, the family are appealing for witnesses through the New Journal.

Ms Kabeja added: “He has had three operations on his head.

They are gradually reducing the sedation but his breathing is still supported by the machines.

He is a fighter.

We have to believe he’ll come through.

“He is so popular.

So many people have been asking how he is.

He has had three operations and they are expecting some kind of brain damage.”

At his home, Alpha’s family told how he had travelled around the world and loved to play the guitar and listen to indie music.

The band he manages, A Band Named King, performed an acoustic set at the Roundhouse in October alongside Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

Ms Kabeja described how her son’s eyes “glimmered” for the first time after his younger brother played music through his earphones at the Euston Road hospital.

Alpha, a former Quinton Kynaston pupil also known as Alfa Kalisa, has a King’s College university degree in anthropology.

He was born in Uganda after his mother left Rwanda as a young woman, later coming with her family to Camden.

Alpha set off from his home in Somers Town on his blue/lilac bike, with drop-down racer-style handle-bars, to see a friend in Kentish Town.

Camden Street is a one-way street going south.

Alpha was wearing a light brown, camel-coloured jacket the day he was found.

A spokeswoman for the London Ambulance Service said: “We were called just before 4.30pm on January 1 to an incident in Camden Street.

We sent an ambulance crew and single responder to the scene and treated one patient, a man in his 20s, and took him UCH.”