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)
“We are the men of intrinsic value, who can strike our fortunes out of ourselves, whose worth is independent of accidents in life, or revolutions in government: we have heads to get money, and hearts to spend it.”
—George Farquhar (1678–1707)