‘After the accident, all I could think was: because of me, our son has a scar forever’

Joane (29): “It was one of the first warm days of the year, two years ago. Timo was four and sat next to Jenna of twenty months on a sheepskin in the bicycle trailer. I had to get used to it a bit, such a trailer. Until his sister was born, Timo just sat in the front seat on my steering wheel when we went out. But because I did not dare to cycle with a child on the front and one on the back, I decided once Jenna arrived to use a friend’s cart, until Timo could cycle independently enough.

After my friend Marvin installed the trailer, I took a test drive. It worked without any problems. So we put an orange flag on the cart for extra visibility and I drove an extra lap with Timo. He loved it, and I hardly felt any difference with his weight in the cart. With his sister there, a bike ride had to be possible that weekend.

Dodge

Marvin and I had spent at least an hour on it that day. It was busy on the polder path towards our house. I was forced to cycle behind my friend. Halfway down the path, lightly graveled, a cyclist met us, taking up too wide a section of the road. I had no choice but to swerve towards the berm.

I do not know in detail what exactly happened next. I gave my handlebars a short tug to avoid hitting the oncoming traffic, and felt the cart make a scissor movement behind my bike. The next thing I remember is the cart laying on its side, my kids half strapped in, half off. A large circle of people arose around us. Jenna was secure in her seat belt and was fine. She looked up at the crowd in amazement, but she didn’t even seem startled. Meanwhile Timo lay with his cheek on the asphalt, screaming, his bicycle helmet crooked on his head. The cart’s frame was intact, but the plastic window next to it was torn off. And right there his head had hit the gravel path. All I saw was blood.

‘It is my fault’

Marvin was calm and cold-blooded. He planted Jenna in the grass, turned the cart upright, and called 911. I watched apathetically. From Timo’s outer corner of his eye a large snag ran to the corner of his mouth. It was awful. His front tooth was out, and a flap of skin hung from the square. My child is mutilated for good, I could only think. And it was my fault.

The ambulance was there in ten minutes. While Marvin took Jenna to the neighbors, I drove to the hospital. There they reassured me: it had to be stitched up, but no skin had disappeared. It would leave Timo a scar, but nothing that could not be repaired later in life. There was only one thing: because the wound was so big and Timo so freaked out, they preferred to do it in the operating theater, under a daze. “By a plastic surgeon?” I managed to release – which was indeed arranged after considerable insistence. As much as I felt my child was hurt, I was more concerned about his future. The wound covered much of his face. What if everyone soon found him repulsive?

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Accidents happen

In my opinion, the operation took hours. Timo came out the way he went in: utterly hysterical. Blamed him for what he had just experienced, because of me. A large bandage adorned his cheek, his eye was blue, his hand scraped. No matter how hard my heart cried for him, I too was trauma richer. How could I ever forgive myself for this?

The GP proved to be a great help in the weeks after the accident. She understood my guilt and mentioned how often these kinds of things happen. He could also have fallen out of the climbing frame. Or sit on Marvin’s bike. Accidents happen; I had done everything I could to make sure that cycling would be safe? The children still wore a bicycle helmet within the frame of the bicycle trailer. That safety is not quite comfortable for me yet. That Timo flew partly out of his seat despite the five-point belt, was probably my fault. I must have not pressed the closure properly.

Strangely enough, Marvin hasn’t been mad for a second. Barely an hour after Timo and I left in the ambulance, he was standing next to us in the hospital. He did not leave our side in the days that followed. He built Lego with Timo, cooked when I had a bad time; he was a rock. I don’t know if I would have felt that in his shoes. I did this to our child, because of me our son will go through life forever. Timo had just started primary school. “Soon they will report to Youth Care,” I said. While something like that already happens in the hospital when a child ends up there because of real guilt or negligence. But they also said that falls by bicycle are so common. Timo was just unlucky that the injury was in his face.

Pirate hook

His teeth will probably be fine. The adult front tooth in his jaw looks undamaged, he just started exchanging a little earlier, the dentist says. The worst I think is the scar. He himself calls it his ‘pirate hook’ – inspired by Marvin. Other children don’t see it, only parents sometimes ask about it. Then I tell them honestly what happened and I urge them to be really careful on the bike. According to the doctors, the square will eventually be a thin line, which with a bit of luck partly grows a beard when Timo is an adult. And if not, a lot is still possible with laser, for example.

Worried

The elderly man I left for found out through bystanders our address and sent a huge bouquet with apologies a few days later. I called him; I don’t blame him. I could have passed him, I was the one who steered aside too abruptly. The bicycle trailer ended up in the recycling center, my girlfriend did not want it back. I have never cycled with Timo on the back. He now cycles through the streets like a kamikaze himself – something for which I now hold my heart, especially now that Jenna is also learning to ride a bicycle.

I have become more concerned as a mother. Before the accident I had them calmly clamber on a playground, now I am tense next to it, in the utmost state of readiness to catch one. Not a hair on my head that thinks of letting my kids cycle without a helmet, or skating without wrist, elbow and knee pads.

I’m also more skittish in traffic. See what an innocent bike ride can cause, let alone the risks of racing down the highway at 120. Nonsense feelings, of course; this was a one-off bad luck and I cannot prevent my children from getting the necessary scrapes and dents in the future. That’s how you grow big.

“You can’t protect your children from life,” my mother always says, and of course it is. Still, I will check their seat belts until they are eighteen, and insist on vigilance. An accident may be in a small corner, but never under my watchful eye again. ”

This article can be found in Kek Mama 06-2021.

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