Two pedestrians were killed by passing cars on Highway 4 near the Zikim Interchange late Thursday night, when the two, in their 40s and 50s, crossed the highway to aid the wounded of a different car crash. The two victims were identified as Yoav Hadari and Hanoch Telker, two bus drivers from Ofakim.
There have been 12 victims of road accidents in Israel over the last two-and-a-half days. Just last night, a bus driver lost control of his vehicle, crashing it into a bus stop in Jerusalem. A mother and her two daughters died in the incident. This brings the number of deaths from road accidents, in August alone, up to 23.
Paramedics who arrived at the incident on Highway 4 found the victims dead at the scene. The other people at the scene, aged 28 and 67 — who the two victims crossed to the street to help — were evacuated to the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon in moderate condition for further assistance.
MDA paramedics told that when they arrived on the scene they saw two cars, each driven by a person — the 28-year-old and the 67-year-old "completely smashed into each other."
"It was a harsh scene," recalled the two MDA paramedics, Eliyahu Shukrun and Elissa Krant, "The night was dark."
"It was a harsh scene. The night was dark."
MDA paramedics Eliyahu Shukrun and Elissa Krant
Different place, different time
Also on Thursday night, a 70-year-old man and a 24-year-old man were moderately injured in a car crash in Kfar Saba. Both men, as well as a 19-year-old who was at the scene, were evacuated to the hospital.
On Tuesday night, a 40-year-old man was killed after a truck and two cars collided on Begin Road, on the Ben Zion Interchange en route to Atarot in Jerusalem. Four other people who were at the scene were given medical attention and evacuated to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem and Hadassah-University Medical Center, on Jerusalem’s Mount Scopus: a 30-year-old man in critical condition, two teenagers, a 17-year-old and a 19-year-old in moderate condition and a 29-year-old man, the truck driver, in light condition.
Just a few hours earlier, on Tuesday afternoon, a 70-year-old man was killed after a bus driver hit into a security railing at a building site on Yirmiyahu street. The bus driver, 40, was pulled out of the bus in critical condition and in and out of consciousness. Another person was also lightly injured.
From the start of the calendar year, 225 people were killed on Israel's roads.