Frits van de Voort (63) fell with his mountain bike over a wooden beam that suddenly lay on the course in the Amsterdamse Bos. According to the police, the beam may have been deliberately put down. Justice offers a reward of 15,000 euros for the tip that leads to clarification. “It was a murder weapon.”
In May 2020, a descent into the forest had disastrous consequences for Frits, who had been perfectly healthy until then. The KLM senior purser collided hard with the beam, was launched and broke four cervical vertebrae, among other things. “He had no chance to divert,” says his widow Esther Heida (56) tonight in the program Discovery Requested. “It was a murder weapon, that’s what I call it.”
The 63-year-old mountain biker from Amsterdam passed away last October. After the fall over the beam on May 29, 2020, he became permanently paralyzed. Despite his complete upper spinal cord injury, he suffered from severe nerve pains. He fought with all he had in him, including for his wife and son.
Everything affected
The Amsterdammer could no longer walk. After 2.5 years of rehabilitation, with no prospect of improvement and with great pain, he opted for euthanasia. “He was getting more and more wounds and nerve pain. He lay in bed in the same position for weeks. As if he was constantly lying in state,” says his wife, who is a flight attendant. “I couldn’t touch him anymore; everything was affected by the nerve pain. He looked at me and said, ‘Eh, this can’t be done anymore.’ I didn’t want to lose him. Better a disabled man than no man at all.”
But he could not and would not continue. With a smile on his face and in the presence of his wife, son and loved ones, Van der Voort passed away at the age of 63. “His last words were ‘good night’.”
Angry looks
The victim cycled through the Amsterdamse Bos almost daily with a group of friends during corona times. The gyms were closed during the first lockdown, so they went to the woods. According to the police, this occasionally led to angry looks from hikers and clashes with discussions about whether or not mountain biking is allowed. “A number of hikers had great frustrations,” said a police spokeswoman, who emphasizes that mountain biking is not prohibited in the forest. However, practitioners must always take walkers into account.
About ten minutes before Van de Voort crashed, he also rode the descent as a warm-up lap. At that moment the bar was not yet there. The beam was probably put down by one or more people at the beginning of the afternoon. “We have no evidence that the beam was really deliberately put down by a person, but we do suspect this.”
The police hope to find out more by offering tip money. “In recent years, the police have already done a lot of research in and around the Amsterdamse Bos to clarify the circumstances of the bicycle accident,” said the police.
Discovery Requested paid attention to the matter tonight.
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