An athlete with heart cannot forget her failure

The  former football star woman does not allow interviews. She certainly doesn’t want to give the impression that she has repressed the memories of the car accident in which she left a mother a widow and two children half-orphans near her hometown in Tullnerfeld two years ago when they fell into a momentous microsleep and woke up into the oncoming lane.

Police colleagues attended Ms. district inspector the driving license. She was not prosecuted under criminal law because she remained below the 0.8 alcohol limit in the alcohol test. But only accused because she fell asleep.

Burger’s feeling of guilt was so pervasive that, against her lawyer’s advice, she decided not to appeal the sentence (nine months in prison, three of which were unconditional). While still in the courtroom, trial reporters saw how the initially irreconcilable widow and Burger fell into each other’s arms, crying.

Burger received an ankle bracelet and was fired from Vienna, whose women’s sports director she had been. The Ministry of the Interior did not let her go, especially since she is valued there as a conscientious civil servant.

Toni Polster, Andi Ogris, Andi Ivanschitz, Thomas Flögel and the slalom World Cup winner who became a senior police athlete Reinfried Herbst organized by Burger’s superior Günther Marek chasing the ball at a charity game in Rust (Lower Austria). Because there was so much sympathy there, Nina’s friends and helpers raised almost 15,000 euros for the benefit of the accident victim’s surviving relatives.

But Burger was also confronted with the celebrity penalty. If she hadn’t scored an incredible 53 goals in 109 international matches, if she hadn’t been Austria’s very first European Championship goalscorer, then – as the law requires – only her initials NB would have been allowed to be mentioned in the media. However, this clause does not apply to persons of public interest.

To avoid any mistakes: perpetrators never deserve more compassion than victims. But the memory of the Tullnerfeld tragedy may prevent some people who are in a good Christmas or New Year’s Eve mood from getting into the car in a supposedly fit way at three in the morning.

Athlete with heart

By the way, Nina Burger was chosen as an athlete with a heart at the Sporthilfe Gala in 2020 for her efforts to enable people with disabilities to receive free training during the Corona period. If you google this, you will of course have to search for a long time online.