Concerned that erroneous details emerged about his July 14 car crash, Kyle Shanahan called a group of reporters into his office Tuesday to clear up a key piece of the story. Shanahan said he was the one who crossed into oncoming traffic, not the 21-year-old driver of the other car.
A California crash database indicated the other driver made an illegal turn, causing the head-on collision in Palo Alto earlier this month. That is incorrect, Shanahan said. He said his cell phone slid off his lap and that he took his eyes off the road to retrieve it between the seats.
As he was coming up with the phone, the vehicles collided. The San Francisco 49ers head coach said the airbag broke his nose and the visor, with a metal garage door opener clipped to it, sliced him above his right eye, opening a gash that required more than 40 stitches to close. He also received three broken ribs and a concussion, the symptoms of which he is still experiencing. Palo Alto police said the driver of the other vehicle was not injured, no one was cited at the scene and that alcohol was not involved.
“I hit her,” an emotional Shanahan said. “I don’t know why it was reported (the other) way.”
In a statement, the Palo Alto police department attributed the discrepancy to a “clerical error.”
“I can confirm that Kyle Shanahan’s statement that he provided is correct and that he was found at fault for the collision,” Lt. Nicolas Martinez said in the statement. “There was a clerical error in the preparation of the report that was transmitted to the State database. We are in the process of correcting that error. It is the officer’s discretion at the scene of the collision as to whether they issue a citation to either party. 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.”
Shanahan said he was “crushed” when details emerged Monday night that suggested the other driver was at fault. He said he was returning from a chiropractor appointment in Menlo Park, Calif., and was in the left-hand lane of Alma Street in Palo Alto, a four-lane road in which oncoming traffic is separated by a double yellow line. He said investigators told him he was traveling 20 mph amid the evening traffic.
“It was one of those roads that has no forgiveness,” he said. “The impact — I’ll never forget it because of how violent it was.”
Shanahan said that despite the impact, he never lost consciousness and remembers the details of the accident and the aftermath. He said he waited for his wife to arrive at the scene, then was taken by ambulance to Stanford Hospital and was awake as surgeons stitched the wound on his face.
He showed reporters a photo of his badly swollen face, which, two weeks after the collision, now looks nearly normal.
“My plastic surgeon is f—ing awesome,” he said. “My friends are telling me that my mustache saved my life.”
The concussion has been more difficult to overcome. Shanahan said he has been making progress, but that the improvement isn’t linear. For example, he was able to watch all of the 49ers’ practice film Monday with only a minimal headache, the first time he’s done so since the accident. On Tuesday, however, the headache was back in force, in part because he was distressed about how the accident was being portrayed.
He said he’s never had a concussion before, and he now has a new perspective on what concussed players go through.
“I know I’m gonna be all right,” he said. “Like, I just get fatigued. I just can’t stay the hours right now.”
