RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 5 sourcesSan Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan wanted to make clear that he was at fault for the car accident that left him with multiple serious injuries two weeks ago.
Speaking publicly for the first time since crash, Shanahan spent about 30 minutes with a handful of Bay Area reporters in an effort to correct a collision report that he says erroneously assigned blame to a 21-year-old woman for the accident. The California Highway Patrol says that Palo Alto police gave wrong information about the crash.
"I hit her," Shanahan said Tuesday. "I don't know why it was reported that way [on the collision report database]. The police report doesn't say that."
Shanahan then gave his full version of the events that led up to and through the collision between his Tesla Model S and the other driver's SUV -- a crash that left him with a concussion, a broken left hand, nose and three ribs as well as 40 stitches above his right eye.
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"I was going 20 miles an hour," Shanahan said. "I was not on my phone, but I dropped my phone and it was stuck in my seats. It's on my lap and it slid off. And I went down to look for it and took my eyes off the road for two seconds. And as I was coming up, the airbags hit me in my face, and they broke my nose and then they said the visor really gashed me. ... I took my eyes off the road looking for my phone, and my car veered into someone.
"It's one of those roads where there's no forgiveness. ... When I hit her, the impact was just so, I'll just never forget how violent it was."
The crash, which happened at 6:12 p.m. on July 14, took place near the intersection of Alma Street and Hamilton Avenue in Palo Alto, California. According to the collision report, Shanahan was traveling south with the woman traveling north at the time of the collision.
Shanahan said he was returning to his home in Los Altos from a chiropractor appointment in nearby Menlo Park when the accident happened. Officers on the scene told him he was traveling about 20 miles per hour in the 25 mph zone, and he didn't believe the woman to be speeding either, as both drivers were moving with the flow of traffic.
Shanahan said he didn't go to the hospital immediately, waiting in the ambulance for his wife to arrive before taking that ride. From there, Shanahan went to Stanford Hospital, where he estimated he spent eight to 10 hours.
Chris Simms, who is close friends with the San Francisco 49ers coach, said he nearly lost an eye as a result of the crash.
"When you first see it, and it's fresh, and some of the cuts are still wide open, I mean, it's jarring -- it's jarring," Simms said on "PFT Live."
"He was this close to maybe losing his right eye, right? The scar is so big right here. So all that stuff was just crazy to see, and of course, I was thinking of my friend. But yeah, it's tough."
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Since, Shanahan has been around the 49ers on a limited basis as he recovers from the concussion that he says has been the hardest part of his recovery.
In a statement from the Palo Alto Police Department, they confirm Shanahan's quotes that he was at fault, and say that there was a clerical error in the preparation of the report that was transpitted to the State database.
They say they are in the process of correcting the error, but that no citation was given.
"It is the officer's discretion at the scene of the collision as to whether they issue a citation to either party," the statement said. "It is not uncommon for officers to elect to not issue a citation to either party involved in a collision. Neither party in this situation was provided preferential treatment."
"Law enforcement, they'll respond to a traffic collision," Jeremy Jones, the team's vice president of security, said. "They'll complete a report, electronically complete it, and then send it off. And then they'll send it up to the California crash reporting system, which they're two entirely separate things.
"So that lives in one place, they review it and then they input it in for public display and then data keeping. There could be an entry error in there, but then they have processes where they can correct it and report it."
Jones added that the error has been flagged and will soon be corrected to reflect that Shanahan -- listed as Party No. 1 in the database -- was at fault for the accident.
While Shanahan is healing well, he does not yet have a timeline for when he expects to return to coaching full time. Shanahan cites fatigue as one of his biggest obstacles, noting he had a good day Monday but was feeling a bit worse on Tuesday. But he also wanted to clarify that while his concussion was serious, he did not have amnesia and never lost consciousness.
Most of all, Shanahan said he wanted to make sure that a young woman wasn't getting the blame for something he did.
"It just crushed me hearing the girl get blamed for it," Shanahan said. "I'm just lucky that I survived, that she didn't get hurt and that I didn't lose my eye."
ABC7 Eyewitness News contributed to this story.
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