Nurse Cindy B. (38) from Weißensee was on her way to the early shift. She died two weeks after the terrible accident Photo: Repro Wagner
By Anne Losensky
On the way to the early shift at the Charité, nurse Cindy B. (38) from Weißensee am Prenzlauer Berg was run over by a turning truck. She died in hospital two weeks later. It wasn’t the driver’s first accident…
► THAT HAPPENED. May 14, 2021, 6 a.m. Greifswalder Strasse towards the city. A cement mixer turns right at the traffic lights onto Prenzlauer Berg Street. He stops at the stop line for 36 seconds. The traffic light turns green and he drives off.
May 14, 2021: The young woman’s cement mixer and bicycle at the scene of the accident on Greifswalder Straße Photo: Spreepicture
► THIS IS THE SACRIFICE. Cindy B. (38) is also heading south on Greifswalder Straße on her 28-inch trekking bike. She crosses the stop line at green. She has the right of way. The cement mixer should have granted it to her. But he doesn’t. A collision occurs. She falls to the side and is run over. Traumatic brain injury, leg and pelvis fracture on both sides. bleeding into brain tissue. She dies on May 28, 2021.
► THAT’S WHAT THE DRIVER SAYS. “I did not see the woman,” said André F. (34) now in court. “All I know is that my bike locked up. Everything else is gone. I’m so sorry, I can only apologize.” He knew the truck and the assistance systems, everything worked. “I seem to have looked too little at the monitor once,” he says. “But the assistance systems beep at every little thing, so you don’t keep looking at the monitor.” After the accident, he retrained to become a mixing foreman.
Truck driver André F. (34) was sentenced to 8 months in prison with a 3-year suspended sentence for manslaughter Photo: Olaf Wagner
► SO SAYS THE JUDGE. Involuntary manslaughter, 8 months in prison, suspended on three years probation. There had been “a series of breaches of duty of care”. The truck driver drove “not at walking pace, but at around 20 km/h” and didn’t look for a long time. He had already been convicted once for a negligent bodily injury in road traffic.