Three elderly women and a 50-year-old man from Burgas have left Heart and Brain hospital four days after the crashes on the Trakia motorway. Dozens of vehicles hit one another in fog on Tuesday, 10 November, in the lane towards Burgas. On Wednesday, two of the seven injured were still in danger of dying.
A Romanian citizen is in the most serious condition and remains in intensive care. Doctors will try to take him off the ventilator today, said Prof Asen Baltov, head of the orthopaedics department. The Burgas hospital doctor hurt in the crash is conscious and able to talk, but needs more operations. "The greatest satisfaction is when they say thank you. We don't want anything else. We want them to be alive and well," Prof Baltov told Bulgarian National Radio (BNR).
Background: Seven injured on Trakia motorway, two still in danger of dying
The women were on a bus to a sanatorium in Nessebar, right behind a lorry carrying wheat. They said they were dozing when they heard a rumble, the driver braked and the crashes began from behind. "Then they started to hit us from behind. The wheat came down on us," one of them told BNR. The bus door was locked and it was dark, so they could not get out, and the seats were breaking apart. One woman fell among broken glass, another could not feel her fingers, and the third had a chest injury and could not breathe. An ambulance will take them to Levski.
The man from Burgas had set off early and alone from Sliven for work and was in the fifth car heading to Burgas. After several attempts with a jack, he smashed the lorry's window and pulled the driver out of the cab. While vehicles were still crashing, he then stood between the two guardrails and warned drivers with a piece of rubber and his phone torch. Some drivers reacted, while others did not understand why he was waving. He became known as "the man with the tyre". He is now going home to his family in Burgas.
A nurse who was in the middle of the crash gave first aid and took first-aid kits from the damaged cars. She said some people were already dead and others were shouting from under the cars. She called a doctor to ask for more help. The patients who left hospital thanked the ambulance crews, doctors, orderlies and hospital staff, who they said had cared for them around the clock.