“I got up quickly because I was burning from the sheets. The atmosphere was stifling and the windows were broken. Another kid and I got out and took a breather, and I started to help others inside the train. Maybe 50 people were inside”, he testifies today in Examining Committee on TempeThe Andreas Alikaniotisthe Merchant Marine student who selflessly saved his fellow passengers on the fateful night of February 28, 2023.

Coincidentally, the position he had booked was at second carriage and there he spent most of the journey, together with his friends.

Among other things, he described the fateful night on the train:

“I was talking on the cell phone for them to come and pick me up. I had just come back from the canteen and sat down, then the impact happened. All the lights were turned off, the only light there was from the sparks and fires. Some used the flashlight of their mobile phones to have light. We realized how we were turned upside down.

(…) Light in the space, there was only from the fire. During my first movements, I rushed to see what state I was in – I didn’t pass out, I was conscious. I saw how I can survive and then help other people.

(…) You had to climb through the windows to get out. Some of us were injured to throw ourselves out of the train.”

(..) “I remember two girls from the next compartment who, a few minutes before the collision, got up to come to the canteen… the girls ended up,” said Andreas.

(…) Even today I experience the accident like a nightmare, I still haven’t realized what really happened, I can’t believe that this happened to me, that I came so close to death.