There's something to be said for the fact that Citi Bike made it for nine whole months without a single personal injury lawsuit—if this were Russia, at least two dozen people would have intentionally flung themselves off the bikes into 5th Avenue traffic by now. But the winning streak has officially been broken by one 73-year-old Connecticut man, who claims a spill last year robbed him of his sense of smell and taste.
Ronald Corwin, along with his wife, are suing Citi Bike's operator for $15 million after the former struck a barrier at the docking station on E. 56th Street and Madison Avenue, the Daily News reports. The crash apparently left Corwin, who was not wearing a helmet, with "traumatic nerve palsy," a condition that could leave him without two vital senses for life.
“Everything tastes like cardboard,” attorney Guy Smiley told the tabloid. “It’s terrible. He's lost the pleasure of tasting food and of literally smelling the roses.” Google doesn't immediately supply much information on "traumatic nerve palsy" as such, though there do appear to be several varieties of nerve palsy, caused for the most part by high-speed crashes. It's unclear how quickly Corwin was racing when he collided with the barrier, which he claims he didn't see because it "blended with the road."
"There were no cones or colored warnings to alert a bicyclist of its existence,” Smiley said. “It constituted a trap for the unwary.”
