- A Sunday morning bike ride in 2024 became a nightmare when Lincoln was struck by a taxi
- Rushed to hospital, after eight days the brave four-year old was well enough to go home
- Lyndal’s warning parents of the importance of helmets after her son’s close call
Here Lyndal Redman, 47, Plympton Park, SA tells her own story in her own words.
Lifting my shopping bags onto the kitchen bench, I started unpacking the groceries.
It was July 2024 and my husband Jamie, then 45, and son Lincoln, four, were out for their Sunday morning bike ride.
I was about to join them when at around 10.40am, Jamie rang.
Picking up the call I was surprised it wasn’t Jamie who greeted me – instead it was a stranger.
‘I’m so sorry but your son has been in an accident,’ the lady told me. ‘A cab hit him.’
‘Where is he?’ I cried, heading for the door as she explained they were just a few streets away.
READ MORE: Couple’s second chance at life after a horror motorbike crash
‘ I saw my little boy’s crumpled body’
Clutching the phone to my ear, I sprinted the two blocks to the area.
Please let him be okay, I prayed while I ran.
As I approached the scene, flashing red and blue lights led me to where police had blocked off the road.
Frantically running past the officers and bystanders, I saw my little boy’s crumpled body. He was lying on his back on the side of the road.
Jamie was kneeling by his side, looking stunned as he held Lincoln’s hand in his.
Racing over, I saw Lincoln’s face and T-shirt were covered in blood.
His pale blue helmet had been removed. It had a few scuff marks but was otherwise intact.
Lincoln was crying hysterically, his breathing laboured.
‘Ouchy, Mama,’ he choked out when he spotted me.
‘It’s okay, baby,’ I soothed.
Seconds later paramedics arrived.
I moved aside so they could work on Lincoln.
READ MORE: Surviving a plane crash: ‘I fell out of the sky’
‘I love you,’ I told him. ‘You’re going to be okay.’
My boy was placed on a spinal board and paramedics loaded him into the ambulance.
I hopped in the front seat of the ambo while my sister came to pick up a distressed Jamie, driving him to the hospital.
As we sped towards the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, I took comfort in hearing Lincoln chat away about his favourite AFL football team, Essendon, with the ambos.
When we arrived around 15 minutes later, my boy was taken for X-rays, which revealed he had three broken ribs and a broken collarbone on his right side after being pinned by the taxi.
A CAT scan showed there was miraculously no damage to Lincoln’s brain, despite his head having been pinned beneath the taxi’s front tyre.
His helmet had undeniably saved his life.
Still, he needed oxygen to help his crushed lungs, and a brace to stabilise his neck. He also had cuts to his face and chest and needed surgery to stitch up his mouth and reattach his bottom gum inside.
‘ He had three broken ribs and a broken collarbone on his right side’
‘You’ll be okay, brave boy,’ I said, holding his tiny hand in mine.
While Lincoln was taken to theatre, Jamie told me what had happened.
They’d been riding along a footpath in Plympton Park, near the football field. Jamie had been in front as they crossed Macklin Street, Lincoln following. But halfway through the intersection, my boy had been
struck by a taxi van that had turned onto the road as Jamie and Lincoln crossed.
The impact knocked Lincoln off his bike, before he was lodged under the front left-hand wheel of the 2-tonne vehicle.
‘I thought he was dead,’ Jamie recounted, tears in his eyes.
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ I consoled him.
While Lincoln recovered from his surgery that night, I went home to get some rest while Jamie stayed with our boy.
When I returned the following day, Lincoln was so swollen from his injuries he was almost unrecognisable. Kissing his forehead, I sang his favourite songs, and showed him a video that his friends from daycare had made, wishing him a speedy recovery.
Thankfully, scans revealed his spinal cord was unaffected but doctors believed Lincoln’s neck ligaments had been damaged in the accident.
He underwent surgery to investigate the extent of the damage. Thankfully it was minor.
‘I thought he was dead,’ Jamie recounted, tears in his eyes.’
READ MORE: Aussie mum’s warning: A car crash gave me a C-section
Police let us know the driver had been charged and arrested.
When Lincoln woke up in a rigid collar around his neck, he was so distressed.
‘It’s just to check your neck is okay and then you can get back on the bike,’ I told him.
Tears still pouring down his face, he paused.
‘Can I ride my bike tomorrow?’ he asked, a small grin appearing on his face.
Stifling a chuckle, I told him he could soon.
After four days the collar was removed when doctors confirmed his neck was mending.
Lincoln tried walking but the vertigo from the crash made him sway side-to-side and he could only manage a few steps. But he didn’t give up and, after eight days in hospital, Lincoln was allowed home to continue recovering.
Still, the mental toll the ordeal had taken on all of us lingered.
‘The van was really heavy, Mum, on my head,’ Lincoln said.
It broke my heart.
His beloved red bike was badly damaged, so we replaced it with a new purple one, along with a bright orange helmet, making him easier to spot.
In June 2025 the driver of the cab, Bahal Singh Chahal, 52, attended the Adelaide Magistrates Court after pleading guilty to driving without due care. By him entering a guilty plea to the lesser charge of driving without due care, prosecutors withdrew one count of cause serious harm by careless use of a vehicle. He was fined $2100 and his licence was disqualified for 41 days.
We hold no ill will against the driver, who admitted he’d made a ‘tragic’ mistake. But we urge all drivers to be extra vigilant of children. A tiny lapse in attention can result in catastrophic consequences.
Despite the ordeal, our brave boy wasn’t deterred from riding.
Just two months after we returned home from hospital, Lincoln was back on the bike.
And in January 2026, we whooped and cheered when Lincoln, now six, won the under-nines division at a BMX freestyle competition.
Jamie, 47, and I were so proud.
I urge all parents to make sure their kids are wearing safe, well-fitted helmets when they ride.
It could be the difference between life and death.
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