The heartbroken family of a 24-year-old teacher have told how surgeons had to cut away nearly half of his skull after a devastating motorbike crash.
Victim Nico Klein was left with horrific injuries when the bike he was on crashed into the back of a German police car parked on the road.
The impact was so great that Nico flew over the handlebars and landed on the top of the police vehicle, officers said, like “someone falling from the sky”.
Prosecutors had argued that the officers had not put out an adequate warning sign on the road on Moehne Dam, North Rhine-Westphalia, in June last year.
But judges dismissed the case for lack of evidence.
At the time, his father, Peter, revealed that the police hadn’t even contacted the family to ask how Nico was.
He said: “I would have wished that my son had had the chance to recognise the scene of the accident earlier and that the police had inquired about his state of health.”
Now Nico, says his family, lives in a nursing home in Unna completely dependent on round-the-clock medical care
Because of the severity of his skull fractures and bleeding on his brain surgeons had to remove almost the entire front of his skull.
Pictures from his care home show the shocking extent of the cranial injuries.
He also suffered severe damage to his spine, spleen, and liver and Nico can only get around if he’s pushed in a wheelchair.
His aunt Monika Wintergalen said: “He had to be operated on 17 times, his life was hanging by a thread.”
She said that Nico’s 57-year-old dad, mum Dagmar, 51, and his two siblings Linda, 24, and Justus, 16, have been devastated by the crash.
She said: “They are too mentally broken to talk about it. They also go to Nico’s every day.”
She added that tragically, one of his wishes was now likely to come true, but not how he wanted, saying: “He always said he wanted to settle at home in his own apartment there.
“We have to install an elevator there and make everything is handicapped-accessible.
“The doors are even too narrow for his wheelchair.”
Nico’s aunt has now launched a GoFundMe campaign to collect cash to help make the family home suitable for Nico.
Monika said: “Nico notices everything around him, he shows anger and sadness and cries a lot.
“But he cannot express himself and has developed severe spasticity. But as we all know, hope dies last that things will improve.”
The fundraiser has so far brought in EUR 63,196 (GBP 54,145) out of the EUR 150,000 (GBP 128,518) target.
