The description of the tragic moments from the train collision in Tempi and the rescue of the girls from Evia, as summarized in a letter by the policeman who carried out the incident and himself a passenger on the fatal Intercity train, is chilling.

Two girls from Chalkida and Vassiliko, according to what they told their relatives, they were saved by a policeman who grabbed them and took them out of the train.

In fact, the girl from Chalkida had caught fire and was saved by this man.

He serves as a special guard in Athens and was traveling from the Larissa station to Platis and as he describes when the accident happened everything happened so fast that he saw his whole life pass in front of him and he said “that’s it, we’re done”.

You could feel the temperature rising too much, flames, smoke, screams.

Just then the second carriage in which both he and the girls were was stopped crawling in positions 101-106 took his hands from his head, looked to see if his limbs were functional and if he had any penetrating trauma.

As he realized that fortunately neither he nor the girls in his cabin were seriously injured, he began to think of possible ways to leave the train.

The only way of escape finally seemed to be the window from which they were at least 8 to 10 meters high.

One of the girls jumped causing her to hit her waist and ribs.

Since it was high up you couldn’t see what was below when you fell they eventually found another way to escape which was to jump onto another wagon at a lower level and from there to the ground.

One of the 5 girls had a cat with her who was probably still on the train and doesn’t remember going out with them as she tried to find him.

Then they moved away from the place where he then checked if they have any serious head trauma or a fracture.

Along the way, a girl got separated from them, but he saw her later on the ambulance.

He mainly helped the girl who had fallen off the wagon who was walking with difficulty while the other 2 were somewhat better off.

After the girls went up to the street where they were waiting and it was fine he helped, as he describes a fireman and another policeman to pull people up with the rope.

Finally he informed a colleague who was at the scene and they put the girls in the vehicle.

He went to the AT Tempon where my father came and I went to 424 in Thessaloniki as a precaution.

“On the occasion of this unfortunate incident, I want to focus on a report from a police officer who told me that the special guards are a waste of €800 from the state and that it would be better if the state gave it to us and we would be happy” he comments and he concludes by saying that man is seen by his behavior and not by his rank or profession.

“My condolences to the bereaved families“, he emphasizes.

Her father, Mr. Nikos Papathanasiou, also described the moments experienced by the Evia student from Vassiliko.

Mr. Papathanasiou spoke about the effort he made together with her peers to free his fellow passengers from the burning wagon.

The young student was inside the second carriage, together with two girls from Chalkida, who owe their lives to an injured policeman who pulled her out of the carriage they were in.

The girl has fractures all over her body and is hospitalized at Larissa Hospital, her parents are also there.

“God helped my daughter and she lived. At the time of the accident, in the same carriage as my daughter was, there was a child named Christos, he was the one who helped her. At the time of the crash my daughter was on the phone with us and we could hear everything that was happening. Christos freed the two girls, my daughter and a child who had burned his eyes. He is a hero cop who saved our childrensaid her father.

God helped me afterwards, said Mr. Papathanassiou characteristically, “when my daughter got out of the train she fell on irons and was screaming terribly, we heard all this on the phone. At that time, a policeman came near my daughter, where he took our children in a patrol car and took them to the hospital. He was constantly talking to us on the phone and guiding us on how to get to where the children were.”

The girl’s health condition is serious as she has fractures and yesterday, as her father reported, she had a complication with bleeding in the lung.

The moments experienced by the children were dramatic, no one wants to remember them, crying voices and screams could be heard through the phone.

“An officer here at the hospital informed me about some sheet metal they were harvesting. My daughter has nightmares in her sleep of metal sheets coming at her. The moments they lived were tragic.”

EVIMA