Car accident

[chattius 2,526]

Our 12 year old was driving her bicycle downhill passing a parked car on a narrow country road. A truck came the other way when suddenly the driver of the car opened the door. The truck did emergency breaking in case our daughter would try to curve around the door into his track. Our daughter was full breaking too, but she was around 40 kilometres an hour and with wet and dirty wheels it needs several metres. She prepared for hitting the wide open door close to the car frame when the driver suddenly closed the door so she wasn't hitting the broad side but the edge of the door with her right leg and then sliding over the front part of the car.

The driver insulted her and drove away. The truck driver had his cargo in disorder and called police via short wave radio since the cellular phone of our daughter was not working in the valley. He told the police that the driver wasn't paying attention when opening the door and he had even video'd it. His company had all trucks equipped with black boxes and video footage (same video camera is used for infrared supported driving at bad weather). The bicycle had the frame broken so it must still be a lot of force being involved. Our daughter was probably still in shock because she told the police that she felt no pain. So instead to a hospital they brought her home.

My wife removed the tight bicycle trousers and suddenly there was blood. Our daughter had a Platzwunde (laceration?, the type of wound you get when a blunt item hits the hide above a bone) on her right tibia, as long as 15 centrimetres. But to worsen it: the hide around the wound was dead already from getting no blood for 2 hours. So they had to cut the dead hide away resulting in a wound which will probably do a very long and nasty scar.

 

My wife was this angry that she pressed 8 different criminal charges against the driver: bodily harm, leaving a kid without knowing if she was able to get help, leaving place of accident, not doing first aid, insulting, ...

 

I am free of normal work today because I don't feel able to calm down enough to work with explosives.

[czevak 57]

Man I just plain hate people like that. He was probably more concerned about the scratches and dents on his damn car than about the well being of your daughter.

 

But I guess she should consider herself lucky. No broken bones and there are way worse sites than the tibia for sporting a scar. It could have easily been her entire face if she went through the glass of the door and thats not so easy to mend at all.

 

Pass my "Gute Besserung!" to her and try to calm down a bit. (Its not easy to do I know, but anger at sth. that cannot be changed is not very productive or helpful.)

Edited September 2, 2010 by czevak

[Dragon Brother 619]

I am really disgusted to hear how the driver drove off like that. Some people are so cowardly they just cannot seem to face the consequences for their actions. And to cause a 12 year old girl to crash into your car and then drive off after insulting her is just plain wrong. I definitely agree with your wife.

 

Hopefully the wound is able to heal well though and your daughter is back up on her bike in no time. Good luck keeping a 12 year old still long enough for a wound like that to heal properly.

[Schot 407]

Grrrr, that is something that makes me so mad. It happened to me once that some driver parked on the side of a very busy road opened his door without checking. I was on my bike going pretty fast and smashed right into the door which sent me flying into the middle of the road. I had to scramble out the way of oncoming traffic. Some kind people ran out onto the road to help me but the offender by that time had sped off before I could even look at the license plate. I was so mad.

Now, whenever I use a bike to get around I am always on high alert for car doors which is kinda sad. It's good that I am being extra attentive to traffic but I don't enjoy cycling as much as I did before that accident.

 

It's unfortunate that your daughter got hurt like this chattius. Not only has she been physically harmed but probably also won't be able to enjoy her bicycle the same way... I'm glad you and your wife are pressing charges. I think it's very important that driver's are extremely careful about opening their car doors.

 

Best wishes to your daughter.

[Woody 24]

Positive thoughts for your daughter Chattius !

[Furian67 15]

I hope your daughter heals well, its a blessing your wife is a doctor.

I am free of normal work today because I don't feel able to calm down enough to work with explosives.

I totally agree, I know what I would like to do. Can the Police get any identification of the driver from the truck video? Good Luck to your daughter on her healing.

[Sirius 16]

Damn, that driver is a rotter! I hope she'll be fine soon.

Go get him!

 

[FrostElfGuard 9]

As a cyclist I too am angry. Thoughtless people can cause injury for others (by opening their doors without checking).

 

I wish your daughter a speedy recovery.

 

For the driver, defensive (abusive) language often follows when the defensive person did something wrong. No surprise there.

 

Over here, leaving the scene of an accident is a crime too. Probably a lot of charges could be laid that parallel the charges laid in Germany.

 

As a cyclist, I want that driver punished. I want them to learn to be more careful in future.

 

Best wishes for you and your family.

 

A bit of trivia: in China, this would be called a bicycle accident. If a car and a tree had a collision it would be a tree accident. This keeps the car accident rate low(er) in China.

Edited September 2, 2010 by FrostElfGuard

[stubbie 21]

Having two daughters myself I know how precious they are.

Understandably there is anger there chattius, but consider how lucky your family is to still have your little girl.

This accident could easily have had a far worse outcome.

 

As far as the driver of the car is concerned I hope the police do track him down and he is punished to the full extent of the law.

What he did by leaving the scene where a child was injured was a low life cowardly act and he deserves to be treated accordingly.

 

All my best wishes that your daughter has a speedy and complete recovery.

[gogoblender 3,070]

Chattius, this is horrifying! I wish the best for your daughter, and a lot for you and your wife... the pain of seeing blood on family and especially with such a disrespectful clod that caused this...I hope you're able to get him up on all charges possible just to at least make him understand how he's impacted your family. He has to be made VERY aware that his attitude and dismissal of the accident is probably what caused this in the first place, and if he doesn't "get" this he may even do something stupid like this again.

 

And bravo to that amazing truck driver for taping the incident and being able to serve as witness!

 

 

gogo

[Etherian 76]

I really have no words for this type of insult! I feel for your daughter & your family. This type of insult does & would enrage me to my ultimate downfall! The type of rage horrific tales unfold before our very eyes.

 

As a father, I never thought true justice would end up as real justice. If the criminal is never found, I truely hope, the criminal gets exactly what he has coming his way [10] fold. I personally have *zero* mercy or tolerance for such ignorance!

 

Best wishes for your daughter coming from one father to another...

 

I remain,

[Timotheus 416]

I feel sorry for your girl, make sure it all heals properly and let her know that it's very important she keeps that wound in mind when she starts moving about again. If it heals badly, the scars may be pretty horrible...

 

If that would've been me I'd have lost my temper and kicked a dent in the car, after an idiot like that would insult me.

 

I got hit by a car on my way to work about 2 years ago, he nicked my rear wheel when I was crossing (and had 'right of way'?).

The guy quickly made sure I wasn't hurt badly, gave me a card and drove off. I felt the adrenaline in my veins, got angry at the guy but too stiff to go after him. When I tried to get everything worked out (insurance stuff and everything) with the guy he still was a bit of an a-hole about it.

 

Drivers should take their responsibilities.

 

When I was a little kid, I was in the car with my dad when he made a right turn on a crossroad and ran into a group of youngsters crossing on the wrong side of the road, at night, through a red light, without any lights on their bikes. He quickly pulled up on the side of the road to help the two guys he hit; one was OK, just a damaged bike, the other fell off. My dad let the guy sit in the car, with something supporting his leg, waiting for the ambulance and police to arrive.

Edited September 3, 2010 by Timotheus

[chattius 2,526]

Thanks to all who share my anger and pain.

 

Update:

She is still at hospital. Doc's want to examine her knee today again at 8am after it is not as swolen anymore. They fear that a meniscus may be damaged.

Also some ligaments(?) in foot and leg are pulled/strained. The docs said that they can't explain it why a hit with around 30km/h would do the damage.

At 11am she will be interogated by police how she remembered what happened. The video will be played after the interogation in presence of a doc.

 

Update2:

Interrogation was done. And the video confirmed what she was saying before:

The car involved was an older Mercedes 190 Coupe with rear wings. As a coupe it has only 2, but big doors. She didn't want to curve around the door in fear she would collide with the truck. She didn't want to hit the back of the car because of the possible sharp spoiler wings. She decided to choose her point of impact at the connection point of door and car and hoped that she could jump between the gap of car and door at this point. Just when she get out of the saddle to jump the driver tried to quickly close the door. So there was now an edge and the edged moved towards here, adding collision speed. Bike speed was around 27km/h still and door speed 31km/h opposite direction. This would explain why the ligaments were pulled this heavy.

It seems that it was still extremely lucky, because she could still bring her head and torso between door and car body towards the front of the car and rolled over the front.

Half a second earlier movement of the door would probably have resulted in a head on collision with edge of door frame.

But half a second later or not at all closing of the door and she would have jumped in the open space between door and car nearly unharmed.

 

The slow motion and picture by picture showing of the police was real shocking, showing the milliseconds they added to the video and diagrams.

 

So it seems that the drivers try to close the door worsened the case. But I can't flame him for this. But opening a door on a downhill road without looking...

 

And another stupid feeling is that she did what we told her, crying 'Achtung' (like 'Watch out'). It seem that her crying made the driver close the door...

 

 

Her injuries:

Meniscus is damaged, but as she isn't allowed to move her leg anyway it shall heal naturally.

Same with ligaments, 3 weeks not moving.

The wound is an elipse: 15 centrimetes long and 4 centrimetres wide with no hide (after cutting away dead tissue) anymore. To prevent a bigger scar she will stay in hospital for 10 days more at least.

 

Her main anger is that she will miss the district championships in vaulting which are needed for state championships.

Edited September 6, 2010 by chattius

[gogoblender 3,070]

Chattius! I am very relieved to hear that she's feeling better, and that video...it must be terrifying to look at it... sometimes technology's powers are pretty awesome...if not frightening at same time

 

What about the person that hit her... are you guys still pressing charges on this?

 

 

gogo

[chattius 2,526]

We have an insurance which covers juristical help. So my wife did a call and all the rest will be done by the lawyer send by our insurance company. It seems to be a lawyer trick to sue everyone involved: this way a person can't act as witness anymore.

It is law that you have to watch for traffic when opening a car door. If an accident happens because of this then police will react on their own. Another thing is a charge we pull as private persons. This is mainly to cover costs at hospital or future costs for cosmetical surgery or scar treatment which perhaps are not taken by insurance of car owner (germany the car owner has to do insurance, even if he was not the driver).

 

Insurances sometimes don't have to pay if a surgery is partly out of cosmetical reasons. She is 12 and still growing quickly so the scar will get bigger and noone can predict how good or bad it will heal.

 

 

The docs allowed her to have a computer at her bed to do homework and playing (will have to install it in evening when I bring all the homework from school). She is allone in her 4 bed room currently. The other 3 kids (8, 9 and 12) in the kid stadion are all boys in a neighbour room. So it is a bit boring since her leg is fixed.

Edited September 6, 2010 by chattius

[locolagarto 15]

am relieved to hear she is going to be ok. A parents worst fear is that something bad happens to our children when they are away from us.

 

lol I love the spirit of the young, she nearly got killed and is worried about her competition.

 

I hope all goes well for her. And the law works in your favor

[chattius 2,526]

I remembered that I had such a thing still laying around. Got it as a present at a conference.

 

 

Hope that she can use it. Normal mouse is not working and even a normal trackball is not perfect. You use the thumb to roll the button and press the keys. And you have a left mouse trigger for your index finger. Not best for gaming but more relaxing if you just want to switch pages and such while being forced to lay in bed.

[FrostElfGuard 9]

I am very impressed with the way your daughter handled herself during the accident, and afterwards.

 

You should be very proud of her!

[chattius 2,526]

We will pick her up at hospital in evening. She will mainly have to use a chairwheel for the next 8 weeks. The hide which died because of not getting bleed was cut away and so she got nearly the treatment as if the skin would be burned away.

Our house has a big hall-like room at ground level, which held the machines to work with wood when my grandpa was still in the wood business. Now we use it as a multifunctional room: party room, dinning room, whole family TV and music room, gaming room(big enough for 2 table tennis plates), ...

So we cut away some part of the multifunctional room with a heavy curtain and she can do all stuff at ground level, no stairs needed. Her normal room will be used by our little twins and the room for the twins will be a computer/TV room for our first and third.

 

Both legs are injured: big wound in one and meniscus in other. So jumping around on one leg isn't possible.

 

School changed the location of classrooms so she doesn't have to use stairs. The school has no lift. Our au pair girl can bring her to school and lift her in the wheelchair. Sadly the schoolbus has no room for a wheelchair. So our daily schedule will be quite stressing: big plan who has to drive which kid to which place at which hour for which reason.... And sometimes we will probably have to say no to some activities of our other kids.

 

We did a good laughing yesterday: There is a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche:

Was mich nicht umbringt macht mich stärker. That what isn't killing us makes us stronger.

It is one of the quote's my mother like to repeat whenever it fits. Probably our daughter had heard it from so many people that she looked it up when she was alone and repeated the whole quote, which I never read (shame on me).

 

"Und woran erkennt man im Grunde die Wohlgeratenheit! Daß ein wohlgeratner Mensch unsern Sinnen wohltut: daß er aus einem Holze geschnitzt ist, das hart, zart and wohlriechend zugleich ist. Ihm schmeckt nur, was ihm zuträglich ist; sein Gefallen, seine Lust hört auf, wo das Maß des Zuträglichen überschritten wird. Er errät Heilmittel gegen Schädigungen, er nützt schlimme Zufälle zu seinem Vorteil aus; was ihn nicht umbringt, macht ihn stärker."

 

"How do you recognize that something is welldone. A well done person will be pleasant to our senses: he is carved from a wood that is all: hard and tender and well smelling. He considers only things as tasty which are good for him, his likings and fun ends when it is too much. He invents things things to circumvent damages, he uses evil accidents to his advantage, that what isn't killing him, makes him stronger."

 

And then she said that with this definition she would be a very fine lady: hard (knocking on the cast around knee), soft (pointing at the gel around the wound) , well smelling (she peeled an orange before and her finger were still smelling like orange). Eating only things good for her and knowing when it is enough: this day she returned half of the food (very big ration, cook seems to like kids) she got at hospital. ......

 

And then she said: and because all this qualifies me as a fine lady, I will take advantage from this evil accident: When I go to school again I need new clothes, can you give me some money? It won't kill you, and what isn't killing you will make you only stronger.

 

My mother was speechless and me and the nurse started to laugh, and the nurse said that she will remember this quote when she discusses the need for new clothes with her husband.

 

I fear that my translation is not very much better than an automatical one, damn ancient words. Wohlgeraten, what is this in english

[Munera 1]

It's really nice to hear that you're daughter is getting on well with her accident. lol I like the way she thinks. I should ask my parents for some money as well

 

Those are great news man. Hope everything will go well and that soon you will see her running and jumping as a hind

[chattius 2,526]

When I returned home yesterday a letter from court was in. A neutral expert witness said that the bicycle was in very good condition before crash and that even the high tech brakes could not come to a full stand in the distance the video showed. My daughter was at 62 km/h downhill and she was 37 metres away when he started to open the door. 62km/h are 17.2m/s so the whole distance would be 2 seconds without braking. The Magura company who made the brakes claim that they are good for 6.8m/s². So at full brakes in 2 seconds the bike would have slowed down from 17.2m/s to 3.6 m/s. And that reaction time has to be calculated in too. Add that she did not want a blockating wheels: front wheel and you are catapulted head on, rear wheel and you may slide towards the truck.

 

Didn't know that the lawyer of the car owner claimed that the bicycle could have been in a bad shape because I build it up from parts from a catalog. Thank god for the truck driver's video. Without it it would have probably come to a dirty battle at court.

 

There are not many brakes which are better than a Magura Marta hydraulic disc brake. It has a guarantee for 5 years to hold hydraulic pressure and new brake pads were just mounted this spring. We use 2 of these brakes at our tandem which is way heavier than a kids bike. If you life in countryside with all the hills I wanted good brakes on the bikes we have. You try to keep the speed you get downhill to climb the next hill.

 

 

Sorry for all the babbling, probably I am just reliefed that I didn't make a mistake when building up the bicycle.

Edited October 6, 2010 by chattius

[Furian67 15]

Wow awesome brakes, wish I had those as a kid!

[chattius 2,526]

I always considered it stupid to buy a car following latest savety technology, but ignoring the bicycles of the kids. I got the Magura for 140 euro from my father in law, a former motorbike sidecar racer who has good contacts to bike builders. I think the price is at 300+ US-$ outside germany/europe.

I normaly buy frames from a high quality steel and add gearbox, brakes, saddle, ... With luck I get a frame of Chrome/Moly steel for 5 euro at a sale auction at towns lost property office. The kids help when building the bike up and so are hopefully able to repair stuff if they got a defect at a tour. The money I save on the frame I can put in better gearbox, saddle, brakes, ... If they grow I take the next frame and attach gearbox and brakes from their last bike. So they are used to the gear shifting and brakes and I can spend more money for good parts. It is not wasted money if I do 600 euro for a 14 gearbox and it has a 20 year guarantee and the kid can use it even still it visits university. And since their is no moving chain the gears can be changed from 14 to 1 at a red light while standing. No ziczacing, no getting out of the saddle because they have to come to speed in too high gear uphill. Adds to savety too: driving a straight line after a red light so cars can pass you more easily.

[FrostElfGuard 9]

Your daughter is showing great spirit and intelligence. Chip off the old block? (wink)

 

Thank you for enlarging my knowledge about the getting stronger quote.

 

I seem to recall another quote that is a tough person's quote that might fit... Pain is weakness leaving the body. It is in English, but sounds German to my ears.

 

Wishing all your family the best,

 

Frost/Dave

[chattius 2,526]

My quote dictionary states it is from the US politician Daniel J. Evans and used in US Marines training camps.

 

We have something like:

'Schmezze komme zu Ross und gie wech zu Foss.' Which is terrible ancient hessian (the state I live) slang. Translated into german: 'Schmerzen kommen zu Pferd aber gehen zu Fuss.' or in english: 'Pain arrives galopping on a horse but leaves walking.'

 

Meaning is something like: Pain arrives quickly because of accidents but it lasts long.