A graduate student from Edinburgh overturned his car and fell over a Balerno dam in a horror crash in which a passenger suffered severe spinal injuries.
Biocarbon emissions Edinburgh Napier student Fangchao Xu lost control behind the wheel when he turned a corner at speed just outside Edinburgh.
The car raced down the embankment on the roof with its rear wheel sheared off in the impact before it hit a tree.
One of his two female passengers, Linlu Hu, suffered “incomplete paralysis” in the crash and required a number of operations on her back.
Xu, 31, appeared in Edinburgh Sheriff’s Court on Friday May 21, pleading guilty for driving without due care and attention.
The student admitted that his driving caused the accident, which seriously injured his passengers, Linlu Hu and Danya Hu.
Finance deputy Susan Dickson said Xu had been driving on the A70 about a quarter of a mile west of Balerno around 11:40 p.m. in September 2019.
Continue reading
On the subject of matching items
Continue reading
On the subject of matching items
Ms. Dickson said one of the passengers told Xu to “slow down” and added, “She thought you were traveling too fast.”
The prosecutor said Xu was negotiating a left turn and “lost control”.
The court heard his car go on an edge and collide with a tree, which spun and overturned, causing a wheel to come loose – the vehicle drove down an embankment on its roof and hit another tree.
Ms. Dickson said Xu and Danya Hu “went wounded” and were taken to the hospital. Linlu Hu, she said, suffered from “severe back pain” and “numbness in her legs.”
Linlu was operated on on her back in a spinal unit and was found to have suffered “incomplete paralysis.” Ms. Dickson said Linlu had undergone multiple operations and had to use crutches when going outside.
Ms. Dickson added that Linlu “may never fully recover”.
Defense agent McLaughlin said it was an “extremely serious” crash in which one passenger was “very seriously injured”.
Get the latest news and headlines from Edinburgh, Fife and the Lothians delivered to your inbox twice a day by signing up for our free newsletter.
From breaking news to the latest on the coronavirus crisis in Scotland, we have it all for you.
The morning newsletter arrives before 9 a.m. each day, and the evening newsletter, manually curated by the team, is sent out at 6:30 p.m. and offers you a recap of the day’s most important stories.
To sign up, simply enter your email address in this link and select Daily News.
Mr. McLaughlin said Xu was still “kind” to Linlu and the defendant told him that she could now go “without help”.
The attorney said he did not “blame” her, but Linlu’s failure to use seat belts “was perhaps a factor” in her injuries.
Mr McLaughlin said Xu, from the Slateford area in Edinburgh, accepted that he was “traveling too fast” when he took the “left turn” on September 2, 2019.
Xu has been in Scotland since 2017 and studied biocarbon emissions at Napier University.
Sheriff Nigel Ross said Xu’s driving was “of very poor quality” and had given his driver’s license seven penalty points. As a new driver, Xu is disqualified by the DVLA for six months for exceeding six points within two years and has to repeat a driving test.
The sheriff also fined Xu £ 420.
