Lower Saxony
Commemorating the victims of the wheel loader accident
Firefighters in uniform before the start of the service in Toppenstedt. photo
© Jonas Walzberg/dpa
A five-year-old boy and a 37-year-old man died in an accident in Toppenstedt, Lower Saxony, a week ago. Now many emergency services are gathering there to commemorate.
With a moving service, about a week after the tragic wheel loader accident in Toppenstedt, south of Hamburg, remembered the victims and those affected. According to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hanover, around 600 people came to the commemoration in the St. Johannis Church in neighboring Salzhausen, including many helpers who were on duty on the day of the accident.
The joint mayor of Salzhausen, Wolfgang Krause (independent), found emotional words: “It seemed as if the clock in Toppenstedt had stopped, the world had stopped turning.” Krause also thanked all emergency services, the psychosocial emergency care and the emergency pastoral care. They would have averted even greater damage by their way of use, he said.
On June 24, a five-year-old and a 39-year-old man died in the accident in the Harburg district. Ten children were taken to hospitals, some with life-threatening injuries. The accident happened during a privately organized father-child camp.