A motorcyclist whose leg was ripped from his body in a horror crash is still waiting for police to catch the driver four months later. Armindo Teixeira went viral in May this year when a heartless bystander filmed him bleeding from the stump of his left
leg while his tattooed limb lay behind the lamppost that had just chopped it off.

The 45-year-old coach driver from Slough collided with a car on Gunnersbury Lane in Ealing, on his way to dinner in Harlesden after visiting friends for lunch at a Portuguese deli in West Drayton.

The crash left him without a left leg, severe ligament damage that threatened to take his right leg, and a torturous summer in hospital where he claims lack of psychological support left him feeling suicidal.

CCTV footage secured by a private investigator - seen by MyLondon - shows the crash unfold as Armindo, riding a Honda CBF 1000, passed slow moving traffic in a cycle lane.

It appears the silver Mercedes Benz A-Class may not have indicated before pulling slightly to the right and then turning left into Armindo's path, clipping him and making him lose control.

The knock caused the former London bus driver to fly off the bike and spin into a lamppost further up the road, ripping his left leg off at the knee joint. But as he lay there looking at the shattered flesh and bone of his cleaved leg, and clutching his
jeans over the wound to stop the bleeding, passers-by just filmed the incident while some ignored him completely.

"[The crash] did not really bring me shock, what caused me more sadness and disappointment was people walking by with their hands in their pockets like nothing happened," Armindo told MyLondon.

"It makes me angry and disappointed that human beings could be so cold. Society has got to a level where it's not humane, if I saw someone in this situation I would go and help."

The petrol-head from Felgueiras in Portugal has been riding bikes since he was a child and got his full UK motorbike license in 2012, seven years after moving to London. While undertaking on a motorcycle is not illegal, the Highway Code says filtering
should be done slowly and with care, while riding a motorbike in a cycle lane is banned by Transport for London (TfL).

But Armindo still believes the driver should have seen him, and claimed he was side-by-side with the driver when he turned left. He said he 'can't remember' seeing the driver indicate, while everyone he has shown the CCTV footage to has agreed it is
unclear.

Armindo remembers flying off the bike, seeing his severed limb, and the "complete shock" but no pain. "I remember the crash - I remember spinning around - I remember looking around and seeing my leg has gone," he said. "I grabbed my jeans in my left hand,
covering up my leg to minimise the blood loss. That's it."

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After passing out by the road, someone called 999 which alerted nearby off-duty first aiders via the GoodSAM app. Paramedics from the London Ambulance Service then arrived and rushed him to a nearby hospital, during which time Armindo says he entered
cardiac arrest for five minutes and doctors 'wrote the word death' in their notes.

Armindo had emergency surgery with 21 stitches above his left thigh to tie off the artery pumping blood out of his body, then went into an induced coma during which he had more surgery to work on the leg.

Two weeks later he had surgery to reshape and redirect the nerves, a fourth round of surgery to clean up the wound, and then the latest surgery to mend ligaments on his right leg.

"I still do not get how a leg can come off so easily. They said 'You're unlucky, you hit exactly on the point where there is no bone to stop it breaking it off," Armindo said. "I have crashed before back home at higher speed, with my chest straight into
a lamppost, and no helmet, and I did not break a bone. But I've crashed at this speed and I could have lost both legs."

A day after the crash the Metropolitan Police put out an appeal which said the car 'did not stop at the scene but was found a short distance away' and 'the driver ran off along an alley'.

Armindo said his next-of-kin was called a few days after the crash to say someone had handed themselves in, but another update from an officer had said the person in question was not charged.

When MyLondon asked the force for an update on the investigation they confirmed an arrest had been made two days after the incident, but the suspect had been released on police bail.

With a full investigation expected to take anywhere from six months to a year, it has left Armindo wondering whether the driver who amputated, then abandoned, him is still at the wheel.

"I'm pretty sure the guy is out there like nothing happened. I'm trying not to think about it, I'm trying to leave it to the police to deal with the situation." Armindo said. "We all do mistakes, lack of attention or reaction, not thinking properly, we
all do mistakes. But man up and give assistance, at least pay attention and admit a mistake."

Armindo also accused St Mary's Hospital in Paddington of failing to provide psychological support during a key period of his recovery, and only sending him help once he threatened to take his own life. "Sometimes in those moments when you feel more alone,
with less visits and thinking about the leg, what I was doing before, what will I do now, I can feel a bit more down," he said.

After getting mental health support from someone who he described as a 'nice Spanish lady' in intensive care, Armindo said he was moved to a bed on another floor where he had 'no support' for a month (around June 20 to July 20).

During this time he claims the hospital tried to discharge him to a temporary accommodation without a special bed or supervision from a nurse.

After rejecting this once, he claims the hospital then tried to discharge him to his home in Slough without the necessary accessibility changes in place. "They wanted to send me home and I would be locked up like a prisoner, it would be inhumane, no one
should suffer like that," Armindo claimed.

It was at this point Armindo told staff 'What do you want me to do, throw myself in the canal?', after which he says they began organising regular mental health visits which have continued since his move to Wexham Park hospital in Slough.

He also accused the hospital of failing to take measures which might have led to further damage. Two weeks after his emergency surgery, Armindo claimed he had warned doctors 'something did not feel right' about his surviving leg. "No-one listened until I
tried to go to the toilet and my leg almost snapped sideways," he said.

As he moved from a wheelchair to the toilet, Armindo says he put pressure on his leg which made it bend 'a couple of inches' before realising and sitting back down to scream for a nurse. "In English style - I nearly sh** my pants, I looked down and it
was about to snap," he said. Armindo claimed it was this incident that prompted doctors give him surgery to repair the ligaments.

A spokesperson for the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, told MyLondon: "We're really sorry to hear about Mr Teixeira’s experience at our hospital and are looking into his concerns. We’d urge Mr
Teixeira to contact our complaints team or his clinical team if he feels able to, so we can look into this as fully as possible.

"We are committed to providing high quality care. Whenever there are concerns that we’ve fallen short of this, we want to fully understand what happened so we can continue to learn and improve.”
Daughter, 13, learned about the crash from watching viral video

Before the surgery to his nerves, the phenomenon of phantom pain left Armindo with 'really annoying' electric shocks firing down his leg towards his absent foot. But the pain of losing his limb and the complications that followed were not as heart-
breaking as watching the trauma unfold for his 13-year-old daughter who first learned of her dad's gruesome crash on social media.

"A child, 13-years-old, seeing the video [of me bleeding on the road] and people asking 'Is that your dad?' then police knocking on the door saying 'Your dad is in hospital'. Then seeing me in bed - it was quite traumatic for her," Armindo told MyLondon.

The crash has also left him in dire financial difficulty without sick pay because he was only two months into PAYE contract at his new company. It means he is not eligible for sick pay that workers can claim after six months.

Though he has kept his job, the Universal Credit payment of £714 a month is nowhere near enough to cover rent of £1,050 and other costs totalling £600 a month, putting him around £1,000 further into debt every month he remains unable to work.

Armindo said he wants to be at work within a year so he can get back to taking his daughter away for long weekends, and flying back to his home country for holidays by the sea. His landlord has already agreed to government funded accessibility changes
that will allow him to use the flat he is already renting, but Armindo said he is still waiting for these to be approved by the council.

"I look down and I have always been a person to enjoy freedom," Armindo said. "But there's nothing I can do to change it. I lost a leg. I have to recover as fast as possible to get back to work." The accident has not put him off motorbikes one bit too. "
A lot of people ask me if I will give up," he said. "But I ask: 'Why can't I ride?'. This could happen if you are walking, driving, or riding, it does not matter."

https://www.mylondon.news/news/west-london-news/my-leg-ripped-body-horror-27870248

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