His ‘dreams were shattered’
Pedestrian left paralyzed after a car hit him
STAMFORD — For more than two decades, downtown Stamford was like a second home to David Bond.
The 67-year-old Stamford native often frequented the area, wearing his gray beanie and a black jacket, walking behind a shopping cart filled with his most prized possessions, different articles of
clothing and his favorite books.
When he wasn’t walking the city streets, Bond often spent his time reading or talking to friends in Latham or Scalzi parks.
But that all changed earlier this year, on Jan. 3, when Bond was struck by a car while crossing West Main Street, near its intersection with Spruce Street. Police later determined that Bond had walked across the street during a green light, so the driver faced no charges and was allowed to walk from the scene.
Bond was not so lucky. The accident left him incapacitated and fighting for his life, his brother
said. He suffered collapsed lungs, fractured ribs, a broken left leg, his left shoulder pulled out of socket with nerve damage, brain damage and a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down.
More than three months later, Bond is still on a ventilator and struggling to recover.
“When I heard, it left me with a sad and sunken feeling,” said his brother Melvin Bond, who lives in Virginia. “All of David’s future dreams were shattered because of the accident.”
Prior to the collision, the Boston College grad expressed an interest in returning to school and studying subjects such as African heritage, Ki-Swahili and the Egyptian Hieroglyphic Numbering System.
“Maybe I can teach in the field,” Bond told the Stamford Advocate in December. “Teaching is a field where they don’t just cut you off at 65.”
Betsy Lopez, senior program operations manager at the New Covenant Center, which runs a food pantry and soup kitchen, said she was saddened to hear about Bond’s accident.
“I noticed he hadn’t been around here in a while, but I had no idea,” she said.
For years, Bond ate both lunch and dinner at New Covenant on almost a daily basis, Lopez said.
Though Bond wasn’t homeless, he often frequented places like New Covenant and Pacific House for his meals.
Lopez said she remembers Bond as “always being polite.” She said he would often enjoy his meals alone, though he could carry a good conversation when prompted.
“He was a loner when he ate here, he usually just kept to himself,” she said.
Improving pedestrian safety
Bond is one of eight people who have been struck by a car and injured in Stamford since the start of 2021.
Pedestrian-involved crashes have been an issue in Stamford in the past, but in recent years the city the city has introduced several initiatives aimed at making it safer for pedestrians.
Last year, the city broke ground on a $1.6 million project aimed at improving problematic Summer Street intersections at Main Street, Broad Street, North Street and Hoyt Street.
The plan, which will take until the end of the year to complete, will bump out the curb line to give more room to pedestrians on those 12 corners, while installing high-visibility thermo plastic crosswalk treatments. Lighted signs will also be put in place to let drivers know when to yield to pedestrians.
Stamford will also be the first municipality in the state to have the Leading Pedestrian Interval system implemented, which will give pedestrians a severalsecond window before motorists are given a green light.
Frank Petise, interim chief of Transportation, Traffic and Parking Department, said that while any pedestrian-involved crash is “not good,” the city’s efforts to improve in this regard have paid dividends so far.
Despite improvements being made by the city, pedestrian-involved accidents like these still occur on a regular basis.
This week the city saw its eighth such collision, which left a 41-year-old Stamford resident with life-threatening injuries.
In 2020, there were 66 pedestrian-involved crashes — down from 86 in 2019. In 2018, there were 84 such accidents. There was only one fatal accident recorded in each of those three years, Petise said.
However, Petise said that while the city still has improvements to make, it is doing “fairly well” when compared with cities of a similar size.
For example, New Haven recorded 98 pedestrianinvolved crashes, nine of which were fatal, in 2020. There were 96 such crashes over that same span in Hartford, and 69 in Bridgeport.
‘A tragic situation’
While pedestrian-involved accidents are trending downward in Stamford, each crash carries with it the potential to irrevocably change an individual’s life, or worse.
In Bond’s case, not only did it leave him paralyzed and fighting for his life. The crash also could also have long-term implications on Bond and his family even if he fully recovers.
At the time of the collision, Bond didn’t have any insurance, his brother explained.
With no insurance to help, Bond has already racked up nearly $60,000 in medical bills, his brother said, and there’s still a long road ahead in his recovery.
“It’s a just a tragic situation because he’s just a very self-reserved person who is very opinionated about what he does and doesn’t want, so he didn’t have anyone — no wife, no kids — up there to help take care of him,” Melvin Bond said.
To help with the mounting medical costs, Melvin Bond launched a GoFundMe page. He is seeking $50,000 in the hopes it will help pay for his brother’s prolonged hospital stay and the long-term acute rehabilitation care he will need in the future. In the two weeks since its launch, the GoFundMe has raised a little over $2,000.
“I just want to be able to take care of whatever is needed for him,” he said.
Melvin Bond said the hope is that when this is all over, his brother can resume the “humble and private” life that he’s built for himself over the years in Stamford.