EKAV Thessaly Workers President Yannis Gulas, one of the first rescuers to arrive at the scene of the tragedy, spoke about the first moments after the deadly train collision in Tempi.

Mr Gulas described the initial confusion over the Tempe incident and the quick response from rescuers looking for survivors in the chaos.

“The first calls that came in to the EKAV Thessaly call center in Larisa, where it is based, spoke of a train derailment,” he said, estimating that both surviving passengers and passing bystanders were called.

According to him, mostly passengers called, who got out of the cars and did not yet understand what exactly happened. That’s why a lot of people initially talked about the derailment. Others said they were inside the tunnels.

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“We knew that the direction of the accident, in which we must go towards them, is from Larissa to Thessaloniki. A lot of phone calls made us suspect that this was not just a train wreck with minimal injuries, as happened in the past in Larissa. There were too many phone calls and they were alarmed,” Mr Gulas described.

In the first ambulance that arrived, there was a detachment and an ambulance doctor, who made an appeal that characteristically said: “Send as many ambulances as you have. There was a collision of two trains, a fire in some cars.

“We didn’t know exactly how many wagons there were,” and therefore there was no accurate estimate of the number of dead, injured and trapped, added EKAV workers’ president Thessaly.

Ambulances were mobilized from all over Thessaly and neighboring prefectures – Trikala, Karditsa, Magnesia. Employees who were not on duty at the time took it upon themselves to fill in the gaps.

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“The fire, the collision, the scene showed that we had never experienced such an accident in the history of Greece (…) They screamed (…) There was noise, there was tension, there was pain. There were dozens of people who got out of the cars and walked towards the rescuers. They asked for help, they asked us to help them get them to the hospitals.”

Ambulances began sorting, while another group searched for people thrown from the cars. Some could not call for help or approach. “We had to find them, treat them, transport them to ambulances, and from there to hospitals. We had to tell the hospitals about the volume they had to take and the cases, the types of cases.”

In the first hour after the message, 40 ambulances left for the scene. If the ambulances had not arrived, today “we would be talking about a second tragedy,” Mr. Gulas stressed.

Source: ERT