Witness account and meeting with a person from Elin Pelin, who falls minutes after the first explosions at the scene of the accident. On providing first aid to the injured, the ability to keep your cool in a situation of overwhelming shock and the work of the first teams on the ground, he tells his story about the explosion in the fireworks warehouse that claimed 4 lives.
„I want to first express my sincere condolences to the relatives of the deceased. I was in Sofia, my friend who lives next to the Elin Pelin Station called me, visibly worried and stuttering, that there was some kind of fire there. He called me at 6:17 p.m., and I was already at the property at 6:40 p.m., and the fire and fireworks could be seen from the highway,” said Kiril Todorov, who witnessed the explosions.
He has a house which is the first on the line between Elin Pelin Station and Elin Pelin.
According to him, he called 112 as soon as he received the call from his friend while he was in the capital - this should have been around 18:20.
„I see the fire in the field while driving and decide to go ahead and hope that somewhere there will be fire brigades. There was serious smoke. Then I turned off the road and saw two black objects – I guessed what they were. Opposite me was a group of masked firefighters – without cars, but on foot, there were at least 4 people. The two black objects were lying on the ground, the firefighters went to them – it turned out to be a man and a woman, the docent stood up – he was mobile, I exchanged a few words with the firemen while I was standing in the car and we agreed that I would put them in the car and take them somewhere. The associate professor got into the car, and the lady was taken out on a stretcher, Kiril Todorov also recalls.
„There was a traffic jam on the bridge you cross, I'm not sure from the adrenaline if there were any police – there must have been. With many of my neighbors, we stood and observed directly not on the road, where the other people are, but inside the field, exactly perpendicular to the road,”, he also says.
At first, Kiril Todorov was not very worried about the explosions, until he heard the subsequent explosions.
„The warehouses and Elin Pelin Station are separated by absolutely nothing. They are a field that, if it starts burning, can easily reach the village. I leave by car parallel to the main road, drive through the field - the road can absolutely be passed by car. However, there was no one on the road – there were no police, no ambulances, I guess it was around 7:00 p.m.,”, he added.
He also says that he did not talk to the docent in the car, thus trying to save both himself and him.
„I continued towards the main road – there were at least 2 ambulances there with 2 fire stations. The lady from the ambulance asks me if there are any more injured – I told her there was another woman and informed her that the docent was the only person who could give information – are there more people or not", he says.
„I go back to my house afterwards to organize something since there is no organization – no military, no fire department, no one there. I immediately called friends to come with fire extinguishers, with shovels, if the fire reaches us and we can stop it – to stop it if not – we burn I told the firemen that I had driven by there – it must be dangerous, but it can be passed, and it can be bypassed, and they can go as far as they choose. They can stop the fire – it is clear that they cannot drive inside, but they can stop the fire and it does not reach the houses. And I don't know where the helicopter was, he added.