“Undivided support to the families of the victims, my heart goes out to them. I was in the 3rd carriage in seat 41. It happened that was humanly possible by those on the train”, said Theodoros Katsioulis, one of the survivors of the train accident, speaking to SKAI and the show “Dekatianoi” with Yiannis Pittaras and Giorgos Grigoriadis in Tempe.

As he points out, he was traveling from Athens to Thessaloniki, returning from the three-day Clean Monday. I decided to buy a ticket and leave by train. I wanted to go back on Monday but all the trains were full, so I bought a ticket for Tuesday and it just so happened,” underlined Mr. Katsioulis.

“And wounded as we were, we went back to help people. I have never experienced this anywhere before, this mutual help. Although we were afraid of the smoke and the fire, we and the children, the youngest of us, tried to help all the injured people out of the train. We came back and helped,” he added.

In fact, as Mr. Theodoros Katsioulis reveals, when the train was delayed in Paleofarsala, he got off the train and while walking noticed the driver’s concern. “Until the accident, everything was going well except for the delay we had in Paleofarsala. There I got off and saw the concern of the train driver, because we had been walking for about 20 minutes, the man had opened the door and said that we are late and so on. I felt the concern of the person,” says the surviving passenger.

“Fortunately, many people got off in Larissa, but several people also went up. The collision was severe, the train had developed a high speed. We felt the shock wave. Despite the panic, the young kids turned on their cellphones to help,” concluded Mr. Katsioulis.