A police officer is among six people injured after a car ploughed into pedestrians and a brick wall in Berlin last night. Emergency services descended on the street in the Gesundbrunnen area of the German capital, near the historic city centre, following what the fire service labelled as a “mass casualty incident”. A number of people have been rushed to hospital, including at least one individual with life-threatening injuries.
The Berlin Fire Department reported that the car, believed to be a taxi or private hire vehicle, “suddenly veered from the roadway onto the pavement” when police had halted it for inspection last night. It smashed into the building wall and struck pedestrians on Brunnenstrasse, a main road linking Gesundbrunnen with the city centre.
“A pedestrian was trapped under the vehicle and suffered life-threatening injuries,” a spokesperson for Berlin Fire Department has stated. They added that police and Good Samaritans managed to free the pedestrian from the debris and administer first aid until paramedics arrived. However, it is believed that other individuals sustained serious injuries in the crash, which occurred around 10pm on Wednesday.
The severity of the incident led the Berlin Fire Department’s control centre to categorise the job as “a mass casualty incident,” deploying around 20 firefighter vehicles and 60 personnel, reports The Mirror.
The driver was a teenager who was not carrying a licence and was transporting three other teenagers, according to Berlin Police. All four people in the vehicle were reportedly arrested at the scene.
Additional information regarding the individual trapped, including their sex or age, has not yet been disclosed. A police officer suffered less critical injuries, requiring on-site medical attention alongside other civilians.
Four people, counting the pedestrian, have been hospitalised. The fire brigade said in a statement: “All rescue measures were coordinated by a senior emergency physician and an organisational head of the rescue service. The vehicle, the building, and the surrounding area were inspected, and fire protection was ensured. No further technical measures were necessary.”
Despite no indications that the event was terror-related, it echoes memories of the tragic December 2016 truck attack on the Berlin Christmas market, which resulted in 12 fatalities and over 70 individuals injured.
Six people were also killed and two injured when a car crashed into a Christmas market in the central German city of Magdeburg in December and four others have died in other suspected terror attacks in the country within the last few months.