Accidents
During the first stage of the rally, British driver Paul Green and co-driver Matthew Harrison were seriously injured when their Rally Raid UK car overturned.
On January 7, 49-year-old French motorcycle rider Pascal Terry was found dead in a remote area. He had been missing since the second stage of the rally, and the cause of death was determined as a pulmonary edema.
On the tenth stage on January 13, 48-year-old Spanish motorcyclist Cristóbal Guerrero was seriously injured after a heavy crash. 24 hours after the accident, he was reportedly still in a coma and in a critical condition. Guerrero's son Cristóbal junior competes in the World Enduro Championship.
During stage twelve of January 15, rally leader Carlos Sainz rolled his Volkswagen Toureg into a ravine, ending the race for the Spaniard and his French co-pilot, Michel Perin, who received a shoulder injury during the crash.
Read more about this topic: 2009 Dakar Rally
Famous quotes containing the word accidents:
“Some accidents there are in life that a little folly is necessary to help us out of.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“Depression moods lead, almost invariably, to accidents. But, when they occur, our mood changes again, since the accident shows we can draw the world in our wake, and that we still retain some degree of power even when our spirits are low. A series of accidents creates a positively light-hearted state, out of consideration for this strange power.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)