On August 27, 2022, the local ice skating club organizes a neighborhood barbecue at the bottom of the Zuidzijdsedijk. It was supposed to be a connecting barbecue, neighborhood resident Jan van Driel tells Rijnmond the day after the accident. The party could resume after two years of corona crisis, and many new people had come to live in the neighborhood. “There was a need to be together,” says van Driel.
A tent has been arranged that day to provide shade from the strong sun and shelter from the wind. Everything was taken care of, says Van Driel. What happens around six o’clock, he cannot explain.
Around 6:00 PM, a truck drives from the dike onto the local residents. According to the police, the vehicle stood still for a few moments before driving down. The Spanish driver Juan C. is prosecuted for causing a traffic accident with fatal or serious injury through negligence.
According to Van Driel, it was just like a movie. “I saw the truck shoot through the tent, dragging people along. It happened in the blink of an eye. A truck shooting off the dike, that’s all mass. Nobody can stop that anymore. That crushes people. It’s unimaginable what goes through your mind then. A feeling of despair, discouragement and panic.”
Ten ambulances and a trauma helicopter arrive at the scene, but it is of no use to six people. Three men and three women between the ages of 28 and 65 die, as does an unborn child. Seven people, including two children, are injured.
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Emergency services on site after fatal truck accident in Nieuw-Beijerland
Cocaine use and epilepsy medication
In the case of C. two questions play a role: did the driver have an epileptic seizure just before the accident? And did drug use play a role on that fateful day?
C. said on Thursday that he does not think he had an epileptic seizure. “The moment I have a seizure, I know it in advance,” said the suspect. The driver stated in court that he has had pills with him for 28 years and that he takes them when he feels a seizure coming on. That, he said, rarely happened. Asked for an explanation for the accident, C. said: “I don’t know how I can explain that.”
Immediately after the accident, the truck driver told the Spanish newspaper El Español that he did have a seizure when the accident happened and that he could not remember anything. An expert also thinks that C. had a seizure before the accident.
In addition, toxicological research showed that the driver had traces of cocaine in his blood. According to the Public Prosecution Service (OM), C. had used drugs 48 hours before the accident, while he would have been aware of the dangers. Upon his arrest, police found a pipe used to use the drugs. According to C., he takes a medicine for a cold with codeine. According to him, that would leave the same traces as cocaine.
During a pro forma hearing last October, the Public Prosecution Service also accused C. of reckless driving on public roads. According to the OM, he knew that he suffered from epilepsy and was therefore not allowed to drive the truck in the Netherlands.
The suspect was released a month after the incident and then left for Spain. Three more days have been set aside for the substantive hearing after today. The sentence is expected next week.
‘Pitch black day’
A year after the drama, a memorial bench was unveiled, as you can see in the photo below. A local artist designed the bench, made from a tree from the neighborhood.
The bench has a plaque with a reference to the victims. The date of the accident is in the wood. The monument is located a few meters from the site of the accident. People sitting on the bench look towards the place where it happened.
“Saturday, August 27, 2022, tomorrow a year ago, will forever be etched in our memory as a pitch-black day,” said then-mayor Charlie Aptroot of Hoeksche Waard two years ago. Some 150 people involved were present at the commemoration.
