Denver resident Tim Valdez says every time he thinks about the incident, he wishes he had a reset button.
“When I see them on the road, when I have to try to get around them on the sidewalks,” said Valdez. “It’s a constant reminder of what happened.”
Valdez is referring to the hundreds of scooters scattered throughout downtown Denver. One of which changed his life forever.
“Used to ride my bike a lot, used to go hiking and camping and just enjoying being a Coloradan,” said Valdez.
Now, Valdez is wheelchair-bound, paralyzed throughout most of his body, after suffering from a spinal injury from falling off a scooter back in August 2022.
“Tetraplegic they call it,” he said. “I can move my arms, can’t work my hands, so that’s kind of been my life since that day.”
Valdez took the scooter home after spending some time at a bar, thinking it would be a better alternative to driving home.
“I hit a pothole, turns out, in the middle of the road that I didn’t see,” he said. “My left hand came off the handlebar, and the whole thing just started shimmying and I just thought, ‘Oh I better jump off this thing.’ Well, this all happened in a fraction of a second, and I hit the back of a parked car.”