Driver of the minibus hit by train reenacts accident

Yashar Yeshurun: I have no explanation for this, I drive carefully.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
train accident 311 (photo credit: courtesy)
train accident 311
(photo credit: courtesy)
Yashar Yeshurun, the driver whose minibus was hit by a train on Thursday evening, killing seven passengers and leaving only him and one passenger alive, reenacted the accident for police on Sunday.
Yeshurun was arrested while still hospitalized and upon his discharge on Sunday was immediately taken to jail. Police obtained a five-day remand on Friday, when he was still bedridden, and are expected to ask to extend his remand again later this week.
RELATED:Minibus-train crash victims laid to restFunerals for dead in minibus collision'Minibus ran through barrier'
“I have no explanation for this, I drive carefully,” he repeatedly told police officers, as he was sitting in a police vehicle of similar dimensions to the van he was driving when the collision took place.
“This will haunt me for the rest of my life, but people must know the truth is that I saw the train barrier only in the last seconds [before the crash] and could barely do anything, even press the brake pedal,” Yeshurun said.
After breaking the barrier, Yeshurun froze on the tracks. The driver of the approaching train pulled the emergency break but it still forcefully hit the minibus, utterly mangling the vehicle.
The driver was a personal friend of the Gottstein-Bernstein family traveling in his minibus.
Aryeh and Rivka Bernstein, their children, Yohanan, Haya Henya and Mordechai, their married daughter, Malka Gottstein, who was pregnant, and Malka’s one-yearold son Mordechai were killed by the train’s impact.
Apart from Yeshurun, only Gottstein’s husband, David, survived the crash.