Ex-“Unter Uns” star Tobias Licht
He ran over his son with a lawnmower
Tobias Licht and Nora Huetz
© imago images
About two years ago, a tragic accident happened on his horse farm: the ex-“Unter Uns” star Tobias Licht ran over his son with a lawnmower.
Actor Tobias Licht, 44, had to experience every parent’s nightmare about two years ago. In a moment of inattention, he ran over his then two-year-old son Carl with his riding lawn mower. His child was badly injured. The former “Unter Uns” actor told his fellow actor André Dietz, 47, in the podcast “Dietz and Dads”.
Tobias Licht: “I seriously injured my child in a moment of failure”
In an emotional conversation with podcast host André Dietz, Tobias Licht says he wanted to do the gardening on his property together with his son Carl. To mow the lawn on the property, the 44-year-old started the ride-on lawn mower and sat on it with his child. After a while, however, little Carl wanted to get off. “I finished mowing another corner, look and see him three meters away from me. Suddenly I turn around again and then there’s a bang and then he lay with one leg underneath,” says the actor. A shock for Licht: “I seriously injured my child in a moment of failure”.
His son had to go to the hospital
Carl suffered a fractured fibula and several severe cuts that required a skin graft. An agonizing time that his now four-year-old son can only partially remember: “With the little one, you know that children of that age somehow process it. That was more traumatic for us than for him,” said the 44-year-old. He still has difficulties processing the incident: “It’s something I have to live with for the rest of my life,” he continues. Little Carl is doing well today. For Licht, this fact is “the greatest luck” of his life, his very own “six in the lottery”.
Accident has “heavy fueled” his self-doubt
The accident “changed” the family and didn’t help him see himself as a good father. Even today, the 44-year-old is plagued by serious self-doubt. And his parenting style has also turned 180 degrees. After the accident, he took all precautionary measures to ensure that such an incident would not happen again. Among other things, he fenced off the garden: “A horse farm, a farm, is very dangerous. You can’t let a four-year-old run around unobserved, that’s not possible,” he explains.
Today he calls the accident a “moment failure”. He had previously lost his job in the theater because of the corona pandemic. From one day to the next he was “back in this other reality”: “My wife was out and I had childcare and no job anymore”. Licht was “completely overwhelmed” with this situation, he finally admits.
Sources used: Dietz & Dads