The partner of an East Dulwich man who has been left with terrible head injuries from a collision with a car while walking his dog has been left puzzled by apparently conflicting reports from police.
Tom Goodman, from the East Dulwich Estate, was out on Grove Hill Road at about 7.30am on December 8 when he was knocked unconscious by a car.
The driver called police and an ambulance for the stricken Mr Goodman. Paramedics rushed him to King’s College Hospital’s major trauma centre as a priority.
Mr Goodman’s girlfriend of nine years, Finola Jordan, who lives with him, said she got worried when the dog came back home without its owner. She went to the hospital to see him after being told he had suffered a fall. But when she got there, she was shocked by how bad his injuries were and said the explanation for how he got them did not make sense.
At this stage, Ms Jordan said, she was not told by police that the driver of the car had reported the collision. She went to investigate the scene of the incident and found skid marks and damaged bins, in the hope of coaxing police into investigating what she believed could have been a hit and run.
In the meantime, Mr Goodman was kept in hospital for two weeks while he was treated for bleeding on the brain.
“He had post-trauma amnesia,” Ms Jordan said. “People don’t really know where they are, or who they are.
“For a few days [after the incident] he was unresponsive, for a few days after that he was talking absolute nonsense.” Mr Goodman was eventually let out of hospital before Christmas.
Ms Jordan thought that local police detectives were still looking into the incident as of this week, as she had not been told anything different. But when contacted by the News, officers said that the incident had been reported by the driver and no one had been arrested.
A spokesperson for the police said: “Police were called at 7.43hrs on Wednesday, 8 December to reports of a car in collision with a pedestrian in Grove Hill Road, near the junction with Bromar Road, SE5.
“The collision was reported by the driver. The pedestrian was taken to hospital by the London Ambulance Service. No further details are available. No arrests have been made.”
Ms Jordan said this was the first time she had heard that the driver themselves told police about the collision and added that she hadn’t had contact from officers for a while.
Mr Goodman, an insurance underwriter in the City, is unable to get back to work in his current state and will need therapy, Ms Jordan said.
“At the moment he can’t really be on his own. He doesn’t remember what happened or anything like that.
“He’s been much better the last couple of days, he’s been chatty – a bit more himself. He still has problems with memory and other brain functions.
“We’re hoping that over time it’s going to get better.”