A few days ago, two freight trains collided head-on near the village of Lokorsko. The surviving train drivers from the private railway spoke to NOVA. Plamen Iliev and Tsvetan Damyanovski saw the train moving towards them and in the last 11 seconds managed to reach the rear cabin. “We sat down, hugged and waited for the impact“, said Iliev.
We recall that two people died in the incident, six others were injured. The footage from the crash was like something out of a movie. Four reasons became clear, there were dismissals and changes in management positions after it was discovered that there had been a series of mistakes at the Bulgarian State Railways. For example, that the dispatcher had gone to get a banichka and had not passed on information to her replacement colleague.
„I have three broken ribs and one cracked, my entire right side is numb, I also have torn soft ligaments in my left ankle. I sleep 2-3 hours a day, the pain is unbearable“, explained Plamen Iliev.
„I have bruised kidneys, liver and back. Compared to my colleague, I am better“, said Tsvetan Damyanovski.
Plamen Iliev says that he was the first to see the oncoming train. „It was about 300-400 meters away from impact. We were moving at about 50 km/h. At that moment I shouted to my colleague to run. The moment I started, I heard Tsvetan apply the train brake to an emergency stop,“ he added.
Tsvetan Damyanovski tries to stop the locomotive. “It's instinct in seconds“, the driver pointed out.
The two manage to get to the rear cabin. “We sat down, hugged each other and waited for the impact“, Iliev said, adding that according to the information from the machine, there were 11 seconds from when the brake was applied to the impact.
“It was like in the movies, scary. I managed to look through the windows and see that the next cabin was coming straight at ours. "I heard the windows breaking," says Iliev.
After the initial impact, Plamen Iliev and Tsvetan Damyanovski jumped out of the vehicle and tried to help the others.