20-year-old Michalis Klapsis described the moments he lived on the fatal train and the effort he made together with his peers to free his fellow passengers from the burning carriage to SKAI and the show “Dekatians” with Yiannis Pittaras and Giorgos Grigoriadis.

“When you hear people around you screaming for help, you can’t just sit back and get off the wagon. When the crash happened, the mother was feeding the baby and it slipped out of her arms. When I got up and saw that I was ok, I could hear her screaming “I lost the baby, help me find him”. We searched and found the baby under the seats. The mother took it in her arms and we helped her get out of the train,” he said.

“All the children on the train, my age or a little older, helped the rest of the world. A girl was sitting next to me, Eugenia, whom we managed to get out,” he added.

Michalis Klapsis also spoke about 23-year-old Ifigenia Mitska from Giannitsa who lost her life in the train accident. “There was a couple sitting in front of me and I could hear her boyfriend calling out ‘Iphigenia, Iphigenia can you hear me?’ The girl’s body was half through the window and the other half outside and she had been covered with sheet metal. I twisted the sheet metal, grabbed her by the waist, and together with her boyfriend, we pulled her out. I grabbed her and she had a pulse,” said the 20-year-old.

“When I got off the train, I didn’t understand what had happened. I could only hear cries for help and the smoke. I thought only our wagon had derailed.”

Michalis Klapsis also mentioned the mistake made with his ticket, as a result of which he boarded the fatal train. As he said, he had asked for a ticket for the Tuesday train at 17:20 and was mistakenly booked for Wednesday. Michalis, without realizing it, boarded the previous route until a girl went to sit in a seat, which he himself had taken, as a result of which he disembarked and booked a seat on the next route, in the 3rd carriage of the murderous train.