Minibus overturns in Țigănași, Iași: Red Plan activated, two people unconscious

What happened

A minibus overturned on Sunday evening, 1 November, on a curve in Țigănași, a locality in Iași County, Romania. Early reports put 18 people involved, but the Iași Inspectorate for Emergency Situations (ISU Iași) later raised the count to 20. According to ISU Iași, two of those involved were unconscious. An early ISU statement also said one person was trapped in the wreck, and the Red Intervention Plan was activated because of the scale of the accident and the number of people involved.

Emergency response

Firefighters, ambulance crews and extrication teams were sent to the site. The first deployment included 23 military personnel from Detachments 1 and 2 of the Iași fire service, with two firefighting vehicles, two vehicles for transporting several victims, two qualified first-aid crews and one extrication vehicle. Three crews from the Iași county ambulance service were also sent, one of them with a doctor. The response was later reinforced by a vehicle and a first-aid crew from ISU Vaslui, along with three more first-aid crews from the Podu Iloaiei unit, the Târgu Frumos detachment and Detachment 2 in Iași. A later count in one report listed two firefighting crews, one extrication crew, two multi-victim vehicles, five SMURD ambulances and five county ambulances at the scene.

Firefighting crews2

Extrication crews1

Multi-victim transport vehicles2

SMURD ambulances5

County ambulances (SAJ)5

Firefighting crews

2

Extrication crews

1

Multi-victim transport vehicles

2

SMURD ambulances

5

County ambulances (SAJ)

5

Data from the article text

Hospitals and coordination

Health Minister Alexandru Rogobete said the Plan Alb, the emergency plan for hospitals, was activated in three Iași hospitals. These are the Sf. Spiridon County Emergency Clinical Hospital, the Prof. Dr. Nicolae Oblu Emergency Clinical Hospital and the Sf. Maria Emergency Clinical Hospital for Children. The Operational Centre for Emergency Situations (COSU) at the Health Ministry and the Department for Emergency Situations (DSU) at the Interior Ministry are monitoring the situation. They are coordinating the measures needed for the intervention and for medical care, within their respective powers.

Casualties and the ongoing response

Figures from the scene changed over the course of the evening. Stirile ProTV reported that seven people were receiving medical assistance at the scene, one of them unconscious, while 13 did not need medical care. ISU Iași said that all those involved had either left the vehicle on their own or been evacuated with help from citizens who had stopped at the scene. The sources do not give the cause of the overturn.

In a statement, ISU Iași described the operation as still under way.

“The mission is in progress, with the crews continuing the medical assessment of the persons involved.”

Medical evaluation of those involved was still under way at the time of the reports.