Accidents
After fatal wheel loader accident: charges against driver
Police markings on the road at the scene of the accident. photo
© Jonas Walzberg/dpa
In the summer, at a father-child camp south of Hamburg, a terrible accident occurred during a wheel loader trip: a five-year-old and a man were fatally injured.
Around six months after the wheel loader accident that left two people dead, the public prosecutor’s office filed charges against the driver of the vehicle. The one at the time of The 44-year-old man in the accident is accused of negligent homicide in two cases and negligent bodily harm in eleven cases, as a spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office in Lüneburg announced on Tuesday.
The accident occurred on June 24th in Toppenstedt, south of Hamburg, during a father-child camp. The driver had been driving several people around in a transport box on the front fork of his wheel loader. The mesh box came loose on a dirt road. The occupants fell from a height of three meters.
A 39-year-old man and a five-year-old died in the accident. So far it is said that ten other children were injured. The indictment now names eleven cases of negligent bodily harm. It was not initially clear how the difference came about.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, the steel mesh box used was neither approved nor suitable for transporting people. In addition, the accused is said to have not secured the box properly. During the course of the investigation, an expert report also stated that a technical defect was not a possible cause of the accident.
The charges were brought at the regional court in Lüneburg – out of the interest of protecting the children affected, all of whom could be considered as witnesses, as the spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office said. It was said that by bringing the charges directly at the regional court instead of at the district court, the children would have to be questioned multiple times in the event of an appeal.