– I immediately felt that I had no contact with my legs. It felt unreal that there was a statue on top of me. That couldn’t be right, I thought. Vanja Maria Kern Vestenfor describes how she experienced the accident that injured her so that she was paralyzed from the waist down. She believes that Oslo municipality had not secured the statue to which she attached the hammock, well enough. The municipality, for its part, believes they cannot be blamed for the accident. WALKING TRAINING: Vanja Maria Kern Vestenfor trains for several hours every day by walking. Here from rehabilitation at the CatoSenteret in Son. Photo: Trygve Heide / news It was 10 July, a warm sunny day in Oslo. Vanja had taken her son (5) and a nephew (4) to the park at St. Hanshaugen. She had a hammock with her which she fixed between a lamp post and a stone pillar. At the top of the column was the sculpture “Swan in flight”. After a few hours of playing in and out of the hammock, the thing that changed everything happened. The stone pillar with the statue toppled over her. Photo: private – I had laid crosswise in the hammock and had time to read a sentence in a book when it slammed. Vanja says that seven people helped to lift the pillar away from her body. At the hospital, they found extensive damage. She had several fractures in her back. The spinal cord was damaged, the ankle and several ribs were broken and the shoulder was damaged. She believes the statue was not secured well enough and has reported the Oslo municipality to the police. – The municipality must secure statues that stand around the parks so that this does not happen again. That is why I am telling my story. This should not happen. The video, taken just after the statue fell, shows the stone and the hole the pillar with the statue was fixed in. The video was taken by Vanja’s father, who works at news. He has not worked on this case. The investigation is being resumed. Vanja reported the case to the police, but it was dropped already on 28 August. With the help of a lawyer, she complained about the suspension. Now the state attorney has overturned the closure. Police prosecutor Nicolai Skjold at the Oslo police district Photo: SWG – This means that the police will investigate further, and initiate the investigations that are necessary to clarify whether a criminal offense has occurred, says police prosecutor in the Oslo police district, Nicolai Skjold. Photo taken after the accident. The picture shows the fastening bolt at the bottom of the column with the statue. Photo: private Just hours after the accident, these photos were taken by Vanja’s father. He is a photographer at news, but has not worked on this case. The pictures show the bolt under the statue – and the hole the bolt was in. A close-up of the bolt under the pillar with the statue, taken shortly after the accident. Photo: Privat Erstatning After the accident, Vanja spent five months at Sunnaas hospital, Norway’s largest specialist hospital for rehabilitation. Now she has a place at CatoSenteret, a rehabilitation center in Son south of Oslo. There she receives specialized rehabilitation and exercises four to five hours every day to learn to walk again. – Have you thought about why you attached the hammock to a statue? – Firstly, it was not a statue from the ground up. It was a stone pillar with a statue on top. It didn’t occur to me that a stone pillar of that size could fall by me hanging a hammock from it. After all, I don’t weigh more than 60 kilos. She says that you can like it or not, but people use statues in public spaces for many different purposes. – Statues and such columns must withstand someone climbing them, leaning on them or hanging a hammock in them. If not, one must have a sign saying that it is not secured. Lawyer Sol Elden of Elden Advokatfirma agrees. Lawyer Sol Elden is looking for traces of the statue where it stood, at the accident site at St. Hanshaugen in Oslo. Photo: Marit Sirum-Eikre / news – This is a very serious matter. It is an event that takes place in public space. Something like this should not happen, says Elden. She believes there are many indications that this statue was not secured well enough. Lawyer Sol Elden Photo: Marit Sirum-Eikre / news – Even if the statue is not set up with the purpose of hanging a hammock in it, a statue that is set up in a public space must withstand this. She warns that there may be talk of claiming compensation after the accident. The municipality does not agree that they can be blamed for what has happened. Stein Slyngstad, Director of the Cultural Agency in Oslo Municipality Photo: Oslo Municipality, Cultural Agency – It is tragic that this incident has had such serious health consequences for Vanja. We wish her all the best, says Stein Slyngstad, director of the Cultural Agency in Oslo municipality. – Our assessment of the accident itself is that the municipality is not responsible for it. The Swedish Cultural Agency has previously examined the sculpture without finding any faults with the foundations, and we would also like to add that the work of art was not constructed with a view to being a stand for hammocks. – This cannot happen Nico Widerberg checks some of his new works Photo: Trygve Heide / news The artist Nico Widerberg is one of Norway’s most renowned sculptors. His statues are located in parks and public places around the country. He is shaken by what has happened. – How much should a statue withstand? – They must withstand a lot, and in any case they must not fall over because someone attaches a rope or a hammock to them. A sculpture should withstand that, I think – at least a sculpture that stands in a park in public space, says Widerberg. He says that one or two people in a hammock cannot be considered a huge burden and believes that it looks as if this column with the statue has been too poorly attached. Nico Widerberg believes it looks as if the sculpture that fell on Vanja was too poorly secured. Photo: Trygve Heide / news – This shouldn’t be possible. All of us who work with such things that are placed in the public space have a responsibility. And those who own the sculptures must take care of them, he says. – We had a guardian angel Vanja’s goal is to manage to train so that in August next year she will be able to go with her son to his first day of school. Photo: Trygve Heide / news Vanja was a newly trained actress and at the start of her professional career. Now she doesn’t know when she can work again. There is still one thing she is happy about, that her five-year-old son and four-year-old nephew were not injured. They sat in the hammock just fifteen minutes before the statue fell. – What do you think about it? – I think we have had a guardian angel.
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Vanja broke her back in a hammock accident when a statue fell over her – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
