It was not a silent ride. They were separated by about 20 kilometers from the crash site. On the way out of Larissa, the firefighters who were the first to respond to the signal of a head-on collision between two trains last Tuesday night received constant information from the center about what they would face. Some of the passengers had already freed themselves from the cars, breaking windows and doors or jumping through holes in the sheets that were lost after the impact. They fled into a nearby field, illuminating the route with mobile phone flashlights and calling for help, describing the chaotic scene.

“A traffic accident in Tempi with 21 dead students in 2003 came to mind. Then some of us were the first responders, it happened again on our shift, ”the firefighter tells K. “That event followed us, it was the most tragic thing that we experienced in so many years of service. On the way to the trains, we talked about it again. They talked about how difficult it was then and what we expected to see now.

The first fire brigades arrived at the scene shortly after midnight. The front cars were on fire, and there were still people in those that did not derail. At first they focused on freeing the living. Other passengers helped them in their work. “We cannot act on emotions, because we will make other decisions. Our work must be done as quickly as possible, calmly. You can’t delve into the psychology of the victim in order to be able to act as a rescuer,” says firefighter Larisa, who participated in the operation on condition of anonymity.

Early on Wednesday morning, as reinforcements from the fire department and Thessaloniki arrived in the area and the fire was extinguished, an EMAK canine team search and rescue dog conducted a perimeter check to determine if a person had died. thrown into the fields. He could not yet work on the ruins. In that case, with so many victims and so many smells, it would be easy to get lost and not lead the stairs to the right place. A different approach was needed.

Truck cranes were instructed to lift wheels, doors and other heavy components, clearing the field for people to enter as much as possible, balancing on the rubble and searching bit by bit with their hands and special tools. Everything, both iron and tin, was covered in oil and smelled of burnt plastic. After the accident, the relatives announced 56 names on the official missing persons list. Day by day, the number of bodies found grew to 57. Firefighters noticed that if the accident had occurred a few meters earlier, inside the tunnel from which the passenger train left, there would have been more victims, from smoke and combustion products. A fire officer who spoke to “K” from the scene reported how violent the collision was and that the trains were traveling at 135 and 110 kilometers per hour, respectively. The exact speeds are expected to be confirmed as the accident is investigated.

Some firefighters-rescuers who participated in the investigation had experience of mass disasters. Some of them in February 2022 penetrated the bowels of the burning Euroferry Olympia in search of the missing. Others recently rushed to earthquake-hit Turkey, where they used 25-kilogram cutters and spatulas, tools similar to those used to cut through the sheet metal of a passenger train.

These are professionals who have been exposed to the most horrific images many times. However armored as they were, there were times in Tempi when the workload was unbearable. This was evidenced by their faces at the time of the search, as well as after the end of the search, by the difficulty with which they spoke to “K”, pauses in speech and harsh remarks. Some of them spent 16 hours in the field continuously, while others 30 hours with short breaks for breathing.

From a certain moment we took out only corpses. There were new people in the cars, and we found their clothes, their things. I saw cosmetics at some point, it still smelled of women’s perfume.

“I’ve seen a lot, I’m a tough person. This is one of the few cases when I was so tense, ”one of the firefighters tells K. “We cut out some parts of the wagons, shapeless masses of iron, and cranes lifted them to get to the wreckage. The survivors were out for the first hour. From a certain moment we took out only corpses. While I was there, three of my friends sent me pictures of missing people, but I couldn’t help myself. There were new people in the cars, and we found their clothes, their things. At some point, I saw cosmetics, it still smelled of women’s perfume.

The particular firefighter who speaks with “K” traveled the same route a few weeks ago, and his son, as a student, often takes the train from Athens for his trips. He thought it all over, how they could be in the same position. “This is our job, this is what we are taught for, but we are also human and bend. People left for no reason, on one of the safest modes of transport. I returned to my house and I can’t recover,” he says. The tragedy haunted him not only in his thoughts, but also on television, which constantly broadcast footage of this event. And if he wanted to run away after his shift, it wasn’t easy. “Everyone approaches it differently,” adds another colleague. “We talk to each other about everything, but we also have to deal with it ourselves.”

On the night of the accident, he was on duty at the Larissa University Hospital. The first victims arrived there, and then they were distributed to the city general hospital, which was immediately put on alert. Shortly after midnight, all frontline medics were at their posts to greet the rescued. Antonis Pantelidis and Konstantinos Makris are specialists in orthopedics and traumatology at the General Hospital. By age, they are not so many years separated from the wounded, whom they are called upon to treat. “Because everything happened so quickly, as soon as I was informed, I turned on the TV and had time to see that a passenger train had collided. Then the snakes told me that we would have many victims,” says Mr. Pantelidis.

Most of the wounded arrived within three hours. They mostly had fractures and open wounds. Someone dislocated his shoulder while trying to break a window to escape with his fellow travelers. Another had minor eyelid burns that are expected to heal. They had no cases of inhalation burns at their home hospital, except for the university, where three passengers had to be intubated in intensive care. Another woman who underwent surgery for a ruptured liver was admitted to the intensive care unit there.

One girl we operated on had post-traumatic amnesia. He didn’t even remember the incident. In shock situations, the brain seems to turn off.

“Most of the victims were young, between 18 and 20 years old. Most are confused. The girl we operated on for a fracture of the fibula and treated in our clinic had peritraumatic amnesia. He didn’t even remember the incident. In shock situations, the brain seems to turn off, and you cannot remember what happened at the time of the event,” says Mr. Pantelidis. The next morning, the injured woman managed to recall images of the devastation.

Kostas Bargiotas, the director of the orthopedic clinic at the Larisa Multidisciplinary Hospital, on the night of the accident, first received information that “the train has left.” On the way to the emergency room, he thought that if it was just a crash, then maybe they wouldn’t have to deal with major injuries. When he arrived at the hospital, he was told that two trains had collided, and with the arrival of the first victims, he learned what had happened. Most of the patients were in a manageable condition. “Those who were in the first wagons did not seem to have a chance to get here, even if they were seriously injured. They ended up at the scene of the accident,” Mr. Bargiotas tells K. Of the 34 victims, 19 were hospitalized in a general hospital, two were hospitalized in intensive care.

In 2003, Mr. Bargiotas volunteered to work in the emergency room on the night of a student traffic accident in Tempi. He recalls helping rescues in the past when he was involved in an accident on his way from Athens to Thebes after a truck collided with an OSE bus. He reflects on what has now happened to the “student train”, where most of the passengers were young people returning to the city where they studied. “You start from Livadia to go to Thessaloniki and find your friends, and you end up in the hospital with fractures – it’s not easy,” he says. The flow of the wounded stopped at the Larisin General Hospital at about four in the morning. “Since then, only the dead have arrived,” says medical specialist Konstantinos Makris. “It is necessary to take action, unfortunately, now, even after the holiday. Let’s not experience those moments again.”

Two hospitals in Larisa became a hotbed of tragedy. Outside intensive care units, relatives of the wounded silently waited for the next medical announcement, while in the assembly hall of the general hospital, dozens of relatives of the missing gave a sample of genetic material and waited for the completion of analyzes in Athens. Psychologists and psychiatrists were there to listen if they had anything to share. On the opposite sidewalk, a group of students hung a banner that read: “No Tolerance for Withholding Information About Our Lost Fellows and Other Victims.” Father walked for hours on this inscription. His daughter was on the train. He was not among the wounded. He, too, tried to understand what had happened.