A tragic story unfolded on the day of the Great Week, Scattering silent pain in Kozani and throughout the Greek community: a couple of Greeks living in Switzerland, he was killed when their car wrapped in flames in a horrible car accident at Polymylou toll, Egnatia Road.
(EUROKINISSI)
72-year-old Costas Tzionas and his 68-year-old wife Maria Tziona-Agorastou traveled from Thessaloniki to the villages of their origin to spend Easter near relatives. They didn’t catch up. Their car was struck by a trailer, trapped and burned alive. Their death was instantaneous and horrible.
From Switzerland to the uninhabited end
The couple had arrived in Greece on Tuesday. Were retired, lived quietly in Switzerland, Having grown up two children, and often returned home – mainly Christmas and Easter – to find their roots, embrace relatives and breathe the air of their childhood.
The trip began with joy. In Thessaloniki they rented car from a relative and started to Livadero – Maria’s origin – and then the microvalto – the village of Kostas. They parked in Veria for a little rest. It was their last attitude.
The tragic accident – a dummy, a wrong time
The car accident happened In the e-Pass strip, in the tolls of Egnatia, in Polymylos. A truck driving a 38 -year -old Ukrainian, the father of two children, was moving at high speed – according to testimonies – in the midst of dense fog. He violently hit the couple’s car and dragged it, so he wrapped in flames. Four more people were injured and hospitalized in hospitals in Kozani and Veria.
The shock of the family – “We were calling them, they didn’t answer”
The 72 -year -old’s brother -in -law, speaking overwhelmed on television, described the agonists Moments:
“They came every year for the holidays. We called them and they didn’t answer. We thought it was in the tunnels. Then we learned that they were looking for them from the car plates. My husband went to recognize his brother … “.
What the Dalica Driver claims
The 38 -year -old Ukrainian driver of the truck, arrested shortly after the accident, took a deadline to apologize on Good Friday. He was prosecuted for dangerous driving, resulting in a deadly car accident (felony), for homicide by negligence and for causing physical damage.
He reportedly claimed that a car appeared suddenly in front of him while approaching the toll, and to avoid it cut the steering wheel abruptly, eventually leading to the collision with the couple’s vehicle.
However, video from the Egnatia Road cameras, that the authorities have examined, confirm that the couple’s car It had normally followed the first vehicle that passed the tolls when it was struck by the truck.
By the pictures It turns out that none of the vehicles involved had reverse, as the driver argued. The only vehicle that appears to be moving backwards is a third, which
is not directly related to conflict.
For the speed at which the truck moved – not through dense fog – There is no official evidence yet. Expertise has already been requested.
Eyewitnesses, however, testified that the driver was moving with a much higher speed than permitted. Those a few moments of negligence, on a road full of traps and conditions of poor visibility, stood fatal.
Now remains to give answers to the unanswered “Why”, the responsibilities and the need for justice. But above all, there is the sadness of two lives lost …