Update:
The mountain bike skills instructor has been found 80% liable in this case, and is expected to pay £3 million in damages.
Original Article:
A mountain bike skills instructor in the UK is being sued for £4 million ($4.9 million USD) by a student that was paralyzed during a mountain bike skills lesson in 2012. The plaintiff, Asif Ahmed, claims that the instructor, Leon MacLean, “used a ‘lazy form of teaching’ or that ‘his instruction on this occasion was woefully inadequate,'” according to The Telegraph.
The accident happened when Ahmed’s front wheel was suddenly stopped by “what looked like a clumpy, grassy piece of ground.” According to The Telegraph, “he came off his bike head first over the handlebars and impacted on the front of his head, just above the forehead.” The article doesn’t mention whether or not he was wearing a helmet.
According to the plaintiff,
“A mountain bike rider who is on a course for beginners and is a novice should not be catastrophically injured in the first 75 minutes of an introductory training course.
“A novice rider on a first training course should expect the instructor to pick the terrain, to pick the course, to pick the method of training so the risk is minimised, so this accident should not have occurred.
“The accident occurred because of defective instruction and defective teaching.”
However, the article goes on to say that Ahmed actually had over 12 years of mountain bike experience, and successfully rode this trail one time before attempting to ride it a second time. However, according to the defendant, on both attempts Ahmed rode the wrong portion of the trail, against his instructions.
According to the defendant, “Mr Ahmed “knew that he could walk when he wanted to’ and that ‘he was under no pressure to undertake anything which he thought was beyond him.”
Read the full article here, and check out a video from the trail, below:
