After gathering his thoughts to the sounds of screaming, Sydney Roosters playmaker Sandon Smith tried to lift a car off a man’s foot.
He needed help from passers-by and the man ended up losing two toes.
Smith, 22, received a two-year conditional release order on Friday after pleading guilty to negligent driving occasioning grievous bodily harm.
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The NRL player was remorseful and had apologised multiple times in the nine months since the incident on March 13, his lawyer David Newham said.
“This was a terrible … freakish accident that Mr Smith feels terrible about,” Mr Newham said outside Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court.
“There was no recklessness whatsoever involved and he’s apologised profusely to the gentleman who was seriously injured,” he added.
Smith was on his way to footy training at Allianz Stadium, inching an Audi A5 out of a driveway at the Vaucluse home he was renting off a friend.
His view was obscured by a tinted black Range Rover, a pantech truck and a tree.
A Toyota Kluger travelling along Old South Head Road hit his Audi, sending it into another car which pinned a man’s foot as he was getting his son out of the rear.
Mr Newham told the court Smith had technically fallen short of his responsibilities as a prudent driver.
“In the real world of course … he did what most people would do in this circumstance,” he said.
“He hasn’t shot out like a bat out of hell for example,” Mr Newham told the court.
Smith was gathering his thoughts after the crash when he heard the man screaming and went to help free him, Mr Newham told the court.
Police prosecutor Adrian Walsh said it was conceded the incident was “a series of most unfortunate events”.
“However, those events will now have a long-lasting and significant adverse impact on the victim’s life,” Sergeant Walsh told the court.
“He spent eight weeks in hospital with many broken and fractured bones,” he said.
He lost two toes and most of the feeling in his right foot, Sgt Walsh added, tendering a gruesome photo of the man’s injuries to the court, showing bones through an open wound from heel-to-toe.
The court also received character references from Roosters chair Nick Politis and head coach Trent Robinson.
Magistrate Scott Nash placed Smith on a two-year conditional release order with no conviction recorded.
Smith was charged in September, days out from the Roosters’ qualifying-final loss to Penrith.
But the NRL’s integrity unit was not informed of the incident until the eve of Smith’s court hearing.
Smith looms as a crucial part of the Roosters’ side for 2025, set to take charge of the team’s attack following the departure of veteran playmaker Luke Keary and a long-term injury to regular halfback Sam Walker.
Already backed to start in the halves following Keary’s decision to retire from the NRL, his value rose when Walker ruptured his cruciate ligament in August.
Smith was the first player from the club’s Central Coast pathways program to play an NRL game for the Roosters when he debuted in June 2023, playing 15 games that year and appearing in 14 more during the 2024 campaign.
