Stefanos Gogakos, a chemist from Thessaloniki who was on carriage No. 5, gave his own testimony from the accident in Tempi after the collision of the trains on SKAI and on the show “Today” with Dimitris Oikonomou and Akis Pavlopoulos.

As he pointed out:

“I experienced Dante’s inferno. I was not in the first wagons of the tragic event. I was in carriage 5.

In Paleofarsala, an announcement came out informing us that we will make a 15-minute forced stop due to a technical problem. We were a bit surprised but the train continued normally and we arrived in Larissa.

There, carriage 5, which had many empty seats, was filled with young people, students from Larissa who were going to the University of Thessaloniki.

We got close to Tempi, where others were sleeping, others were reading, I had my laptop in front of me, we hear a deafening noise and carriage 5 started to jerk in the air.

The windows all broke and the shards fell on our heads. What we all said was, “Oh my God, we’re going to die.” Children were crying, women were shouting. The carriage took an incline and we were all in a panic.

We went to open the door but it was blocked and someone gave the idea to get out through the broken windows.

We went to jump but two people came and opened the door for us and we got out of there. One with a broken leg, another with arms, children were crying.

We got out and drove away from the scene and could see the fire on the train and the ambulances arriving.

Then the police came and informed us that buses are coming to take us to Larissa and they recorded our names and phone numbers.

I will honestly never take a train again. I’d better go on foot.”