The 39-year-old truck driver, who tragically passed away yesterday afternoon, caused a fatal accident on the National Road Pyrgos-Methoni, resulting in the deaths of 4 individuals, including 2 children. Authorities have taken the professional driver into custody pending toxicology tests to determine if he was driving under the influence of alcohol. Reports suggest that he was previously involved in a fatal car crash in 2022 but was not held responsible for the accident at that time.

Simultaneously, officers from the Traffic Department of Kalamata, in collaboration with the Police Department of Trifylia, are conducting a preliminary investigation to ascertain the exact circumstances surrounding the fatal accident that occurred at noon on Friday. The sequence of events unfolded shortly after 12:30 when the truck, traveling on the National Road Pyrgos-Methoni towards Kyparissia, veered off course at the Elaia bend and collided with three vehicles traveling in the opposite direction. The first vehicle, silver in color, collided head-on with the truck and subsequently hit the crash barriers. The second vehicle, a blue IX, became trapped under the truck’s bodywork, while the third vehicle collided with the cars ahead.

A 38-year-old man and his 1-year-old daughter, who were in the lead car, and a 44-year-old man and his 13-year-old daughter, who were in the car that followed and was swallowed up by the truck, were recovered from the violent collision. At the same time, the 12 Firefighters with 6 vehicles operating at the scene extricated a total of 4 injured people. They even had to cut the roofs of the vehicles in order to get the victims of the accident out of them.

They were the 6-year-old son of the 38-year-old man, who was taken to the Karamandaneio Hospital of Patras, the 19-year-old son of the 44-year-old man, who is in serious condition at the Panarcadian Hospital of Tripoli, and two women, aged 38 and 66, who were taken to the Hospital of Kyparissia with minor injuries.

According to reports, the 38-year-old, along with his wife and their two minor children, had travelled from London, where they live, to Nafplio to see their relatives and were on holiday in the Peloponnese.

A family tragedy was also written in the wreckage of the second car. In it, the driver was a 44-year-old military man serving in Rhodes who had come to Amaliada for the swearing-in of his 19-year-old son who is a soldier in Kalamata.

The 19-year-old is fighting to stay alive at the Panarcadian Hospital in Tripoli but his 13-year-old sister was pulled out of the amorphous mass of iron dead.

The tragic moments that unfolded at noon on Friday on the National Road Pyrgos-Methoni after the deadly car crash were described to protothema.gr by one of the survivors of the accident.

Miltiadis Koutsandreas, who was riding with his son in the third IX car that collided with the truck at the Elaia bend, says the truck driver lost control, the heavy vehicle derailed and rolled on the roadway.

It then crashed with momentum into the two cars ahead, causing the first to crash into the guardrails after the collision and the second to get wedged under the body.

“The truck was coming from Pyrgos to Kyparissia and suddenly the steering wheel on the right came off, he went to pick it up and it flipped over. He started to bring rides on the road and crashed into the two vehicles before us. He must not have been going too fast but his right wheel fell outwards, he went to pick it up and found himself in oncoming traffic. He was actually in the middle of the road. The first guy tried to avoid him and ran into the guardrails. That’s where the car was wrecked. The second car had the truck run into him. At first, I didn’t understand what had happened. It took me two hours to realize there was a car underneath. It was wedged underneath,” explains the third, involved vehicle passenger who refers to a spot with dangerous turns.