Drunk driver kills father and daughter in head-on crash near Arad
In a second fatal traffic incident over the weekend, a pedestrian in his 20s was killed in Beit Shemesh, Rosenfeld said. An investigation of this event is also taking place, he added.
By SHARON UDASINThe scene of a traffic accident on Road 31 near Arad(photo credit: MAGEN DAVID ADOM)
A father and daughter were killed in a car accident near the Dead Sea on Saturday night, in a holiday weekend marked by roadside tragedies.The “major road accident” took place at the Hatrorim junction on Route 31 near Arad, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. The head-on collision resulted in the death of Ignatz Iylchenko, 45, and his four-year-old daughter Maya. The family’s mother, her six-year-old daughter and the 40-year-old driver of the second vehicle were seriously hurt, according to Magen David Adom.The six-year-old’s condition improved on Sunday and she regained consciousness.The 40-year-old driver had a bottle of whiskey in his car and, according to a preliminary analysis, a blood alcohol level that was twice the legal limit. Suspicions have arisen that he passed a bus when there was no room to do so on the winding Route 31, slamming into the family’s vehicle driving in the opposite direction.Asked about these reports, Rosenfeld only responded that “the traffic department is carrying out an investigation.”“There have been a number of different fatal road accidents on Route 31 in the past few weeks,” he said.The injured were evacuated to Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba, where the wife of the 40-year-old driver works as a physician, Yediot Aharonot reported.Magen David Adom paramedic Issa Dawiyat described a gruesome scene as he tended to the wounded.“This was a very serious accident of two crushed cars, and some of travelers were trapped in the vehicles,” Dawiyat said. “In one of the vehicles was a family – the driver a 45-year-old man who was trapped in the car unconscious, not breathing and without a pulse, with systemic injuries. We tried to treat him in the ambulance, and because of his severe injuries we were forced to confirm his death.“The woman and girls, who were seriously injured, were anesthetized and breathing on a respirator, and we evacuated them by helicopter to the hospital in critical condition,” the paramedic continued.“The other driver was rescued and evacuated in serious condition, as he was suffering from systemic injuries.”
