Kraljevo: Girl, 5, Dies as Brother Fights for Life
A girl, 5, injured in a Kraljevo car crash has died at a Belgrade children's hospital. Her one-and-a-half-year-old brother is fighting for life, their mother badly hurt.
A five-year-old girl injured Monday evening in a car crash in Kraljevo has died at the University Children’s Hospital in Tirsova, Belgrade. Her brother, a year and a half old, is still fighting for his life at the same hospital, while their mother was hospitalized with severe injuries at the Studenica General Hospital in Kraljevo.
The car veered off the road on Monday, August 24, around 7 p.m., on Fourth Kraljevo Battalion Street in Kraljevo, on the promenade along the riverbank. According to Telegraf, the driver lost control of the vehicle because of excessive speed. The car first collided with another vehicle on the road, then went over the curb and into the pedestrian zone.
A family of four was on the sidewalk at that moment. The mother was pushing a stroller with a baby inside, her five-year-old daughter was walking beside her, and the father was a few steps away. The car struck the mother, the stroller and the girl. The force of the impact threw all three of them down the slope of the riverbank, all the way to the wire fence around the city pool.
There was a horrific crunch of metal, and then screams. The car literally mowed down the mother and children and threw them down the slope of the riverbank, all the way to the wire fence around the city pool. The father missed being hit by a hair, but he watched as the car carried off his loved ones. I will never forget the sight of the baby stroller crushed in the grass.
That is how one eyewitness described the crash to Telegraf. According to the same source, the father was at the scene and physically avoided being hit by the car, while he watched the rest of his family thrown down the bank. Passersby who were nearby ran to help the injured and pull them off the bank before the ambulance arrived.
According to a report by an RTS correspondent, first aid was given on the scene to the baby in the stroller, while the mother and the older child, the girl, were more seriously injured and had to wait for transport to the hospital. The ambulance arrived quickly, and the injured were transported immediately.
The injured were first taken to the Studenica Health Center in Kraljevo. Because of the severity of their injuries, the children were transferred from there to the Kragujevac Clinical Center, and then on to Belgrade. The girl arrived at the University Children’s Hospital in Tirsova with severe injuries to her head and internal organs.
Mirjana Krcevinac, director of the Studenica General Hospital in Kraljevo, confirmed to RTS that the five-year-old had succumbed to her injuries after being transferred from Kraljevo to the University Children’s Hospital in Tirsova. Despite the doctors’ efforts, the girl died.
Her brother, a boy a year and a half old, suffered severe injuries to his head and limbs. He remains under treatment in Belgrade, and doctors describe his condition as serious but stable. Their mother was treated for severe bodily injuries at the Studenica hospital in Kraljevo.
The driver was arrested immediately after the crash. Police carried out an on-site investigation. The competent prosecutor’s office ordered a breathalyzer test, a blood analysis, and an expert assessment of the speed at which the car was traveling at the moment of impact.
Residents of Fourth Kraljevo Battalion Street have long been warning about the danger on that stretch of road. They are asking drivers to slow down, since large numbers of parents with children pass through there every day, on the promenade by the riverbank where the crash happened.
At the site of the crash, by the riverbank, residents have been lighting candles since the morning. According to Telegraf, this is the spot where the family had set out that evening for their usual walk along the river.
