2023-06-28 12:26:35
“Relaxed, relaxed, keep calm”… were the words pronounced by Juan Ricardo Jerez Olivares, the driver of the Translebrija bus 026, with license plates SRZ-964, who had an accident on the road between the airport toll booth and the municipality from Girón, near the El Vaquero powder store.
The route left at 6:20 in the morning on Tuesday from the urban area of Lebrija with 24 people, including a child under 5 years of age, and the bus driver. It was a special tour because it was Car Free Day in the metropolitan area. I was full.
But after passing the toll, some 500 meters ahead, according to the testimony of Juan Ricardo, he noticed a mechanical failure in the car, it had run out of brakes.
“At that point I warned the passengers and asked them to try to relax. I know there was a panic because we were going downhill, but I always tried to calm them down. At that moment I also thought about my family,” the bus driver said.
Juan Ricardo is 41 years old, 22 of them as a driver. He is the father of three children: one of legal age and two minors. With his wife they reside in the ‘Capital Piñera’.
According to his story, he had already been trained to face a situation like the one he experienced on Tuesday morning.
“What they taught us in those cases is to try to stop the vehicle going downhill against the ravine, I did so and after losing speed we crashed into a tree in the separator, that was what stopped us, I suffered a blow to the back, but nothing delicate,” he said.
Inside the bus, once the driver stated that he had no brakes, one of the passengers activated his cell phone camera and began to record the distressing moments.
“One thinks that one is going to die, there were several minutes of panic without knowing what was going to happen to us and after the blow it is as if we had woken up from a nightmare,” said one of the passengers.
The video shows the moment when the driver tries to stop driving against the ravine, they roll over to the left and crash into the trunk.
Immediately the 24 people who were in the car began to leave through the side windows and the one at the rear, also through the hatch.
Cyclists and drivers of vehicles that were traveling through the area stopped their journeys and also helped the injured.
“Some left by their own means. We saw a woman badly beaten, with a possible broken leg. The ambulances arrived and sent them to the clinics,” said a witness.
The Girón Firefighters, the Civil Defense and 20 ambulances attended the place, which took charge of the transfer to care centers in Bucaramanga and Girón.
The official report was 24 injured, 5 with serious injuries, but they remain stable. One of those referred to medical centers was a child under the age of five who had moderate head trauma and blows to the arms.
Q’hubo contacted the Translebrija company to obtain an official report on the accident. At the close of this edition, there had been no pronouncement on the directives on mechanical failures in the passenger bus.
1687962495
#Translebrija #driver #recounted #distressing #moments #accident