Quote:
Originally Posted by fotze
Ho do things like that end? Do you get some sort of settlement from the other driver? I would think you should.
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Yeah, usually you do but it is a hard way to make a living.
Case in hand. Our daughter used to have a motorbike. She wore full mask and neck helmet, all the proper footgear, whatever, took that course at McMahon stadium, the whole gammit, was a great driver.
She was going west on Glenmore Tr, was on top of the overpass at Crowchild Tr, going to make a left hand turn and head south into Lakeview to visit a friend. There are two left turn lanes there, she was in the inside left turn lane waiting for the light to turn green.
The light turns green, both lanes proceed to turn left. Well, someone in an old clunker of a station wagon, heading north on Crowchild Tr at 80 kmp, runs his red light and plows into our daughter. Usually is not good to be thrown from your bike but it was lucky for her. He hit her bike with such a force that it went under the car beside her in the other left hand turn lane and took out its oil tank. She would not have survived if she was not thrown from her bike. To make matters worse, the driver took off, hit and run.
Well, many people in the other cars at the scene of the accident got the license number of his vehicle. He was found around 2 hours later, 21 year old kid, almost 3 times over the limit for alcohol, had panicked and taken off.
Our daughter had a concussion, her full helmet and neck guard saved her, the helmet was cracked though. She of course had massive bruises and swelling on the left hand side of her body where she was hit. Miraculously, not one broken bone, no internal bleeding, not even any cut on her body that required stitches. She was in the hospital overnight, then released the next day into our care. Too soon in retrospect, the pain for the first week would have been managed better in a hospital setting I think.
She had to move home for 3 months, she could not walk without assistance and had to learn how to use her left foot again. She had quite a bad sprain on that left ankle and on her left wrist too. She had damage to her retina which resulted in blurred vision. That cleared up after around 8 months. It is not really gone, but the eye retrains itself and learns how to compensate. She only gets blurred vision now if too long on the computer, but that is rare.
She required a year of physiotherapy. The leg healed up almost like before. She has a spot where you can feel some hard flesh, scarring below skin. The only way that has affected her is with snowboarding. She can not do that now. It must somehow use the muscle by that scarring and it hurts real bad if she snowboards. Other downhill skiing, backcountry skiing, heli or cat skiing, no problem.
Her shoulder never did completely heal. She required surgery, both to fix her tendons, ligaments etc and her rotater cuff, was done arthroscopically, one small stitch in front, one small stitch in back. She had that done in Banff, the same doctor who does all the ski injuries for the Canadian Ski Team. She had to move back home for a period of time for recovery then too.
The kid completely owned up to his mistake. Luckily his insurance company honored his policy. All of our daughter's medical bills were paid for, up front. And because he plead guilty, she avoided a nasty court case as well. The kid had his license taken away for something like 5 years and had 300 hours of community service, has apparently turned his life around and is a model citizen.
Yeah, our daughter got a settlement, but like I said, is a hard way to make a living.