Van Hits Retired Schoolteacher on Dekalb

Despite being retired for 16 years, it's clear there's plenty of the schoolteacher left in longtime Brooklyn educator Susan Metz.

Which might explain why, upon being hit by an electrician's van on Dekalb and Clermont avenues on July 2, Metz's first instinct was to lecture the driver of the vehicle that broke her right arm and caused extensive bruises to the right side of her face.

"[The driver] said he couldn’t see me, which I thought was credible," Metz, 69, told Patch as she continued to recuperate from her injuries at home this week. "What he was doing when he turned when I started to go across the crosswalk ... that I don’t know. And I told him so."

The incident occurred as Metz walked east on Dekalb crossing Clermont at around noon that day. As she started making her way along the crosswalk, she saw a sight that every pedestrian and bicyclist dreads: a vehicle making a left turn squarely in her direction.

"To use the Brooklyn vernacular, 'Oh s---, this guy better stop,'" she said. "Well, he didn’t stop and he knocked me over. "

According to Metz, the driver was not speeding at the time of the incident.

Metz was taken to Methodist Hospital with a broken right forearm and bruises to the right side of her head and body. After being held for observation to rule out risk of cranial bleeding, she was released to begin a long process of healing.

Other pedestrians along Dekalb haven't been as lucky.

On July 10, 2011, an allegedly drunk driver stuck and gravely injured Fort Greene publishing executive Clara Heyworth at Dekalb and Vanderbilt avenues.

Heyworth later died from her injuries. Despite a positive Breathalyzer test administered by 88th Precinct police, the results were later tossed because the machine had not been recently calibrated.

Earlier this year, Heyworth's husband, Jacob Stevens, for allegedly failing to adequately investigate the incident.

At the intersection of Dekalb and Clermont alone, there have been a total of 11 injuries from 1996 to 2009, according to Crash Stat .

In Metz's case, the police were on the scene immediately following the accident. To her knowledge, no charges have been filed against the driver.

In the time since the incident, Metz has concentrated on resuming her life as a longtime advocate for Prospect Heights schools and as a blogger for publications, including .

But with still-tender bruises on her writing and typing arm, even a typically sedentary task like blogging is tough going.

“It takes me three times as long," she said of her blog posts. "It’s frustrating."