The daughter of a 91-year-old man says he broke his neck when a Flextrafik driver left him unattended in his wheelchair outside his home in Herning in late 2024. He died in the hospital a few weeks later.
The case is described by DR’s consumer program Kontant. Svend Bruun was moving from his third-floor apartment in Herning to a nursing home in North Jutland, closer to his family. His daughter, Jette Bruun, says the driver went ahead with her father while the family packed the last items.
Per her account, a neighbor ran up the stairs and told her that her father had fallen out of the wheelchair. She and her husband found him at the bottom of an outdoor staircase, bleeding heavily. Jette Bruun, who is a nurse herself, says she tried to stop the bleeding until an ambulance arrived.
At the hospital, according to the daughter, her father was found to have a broken neck and a broken arm, along with head injuries. He died a couple of weeks later, and she believes his death was a consequence of the fall. Case documents show the driver worked for the company Flex Midt ApS.
Flex Midt ApS is part of a larger business group on Funen that was the subject of the Kontant program “De fynske flex-konger”. Jette Bruun says the driver told her at the scene that her father had been restless and released the wheelchair brakes himself. She rejects that explanation and says her father never touched the brakes.
Witness account
DR spoke with the woman living in the apartment below, who says she saw the accident from her first-floor window. She says the driver left Svend Bruun behind the vehicle and walked out of sight, after which the wheelchair began rolling backwards. She ran down to the street but could not stop it.
The witness does not want her name published, but has allowed the transport authority and the flex company to be told her identity. She says she cannot rule out that Svend Bruun unlocked the wheels, but she did not see him do it.
In writing to Jette Bruun, Midttrafik relayed the driver’s account that he left Svend Bruun behind the vehicle to activate the lift. The supplier’s accident report stated that the driver called 112 and stayed until the ambulance arrived. Jette Bruun denies that 112 was called, and the witness also disputes the description of the driver’s conduct.
Midttrafik told DR that it is an unfortunate and serious case and expressed sympathy with the relatives. The authority said it handled the matter in 2024 before it was passed to the operator’s insurance company, and that it cannot comment further. Flex Midt ApS did not respond to DR.
DR also contacted LS Busser ApS, which belongs to the same business group, and received no reply. LS Busser director Omran Khaled Abdel Rahman said in a press release on Wednesday that the company is halting its adapted transport operations for Fynbus, Sydtrafik and Midttrafik. He added that he has no further comments while the case is processed.
