Four people were injured in a car crash in central Israel Tuesday morning, when a high-speed pursuit of suspected Palestinian Arab car thieves ended in a collision between two cars.
The accident occurred on Route 5 at the Qesem Junction near Rosh Ha’ayin and Kafr Qasem in central Israel just before 7:00 a.m. Tuesday.
The crash involved a vehicle pursued by police, on suspicion the car had been stolen.
The car collided with another private vehicle just before Qesem Junction, some three miles (five kilometers) west of the Green Line.
Three people were trapped in the car which had been involved in the pursuit. Two of the men in the car were identified as Palestinian Authority residents. Both suffered serious injuries in the crash.
A third man in the car suffered moderate injuries.
In addition, the driver of the second vehicle involved in the accident was injured, suffering light-to-moderate injuries.
Rescue teams and first responders were dispatched to the scene, rescuing the three men trapped in the vehicle and treating all four victims at the scene before evacuating them to Beilinson hospital in Petah Tikva.
“We saw two crushed cars at the junction,” MDA paramedics Matan Gida, Shanir Hala, and Elad Polak said.
“Three men in their thirties were trapped in one of the cars. One unconscious man was pulled from the backseat, with multi-system injuries. We anesthetized him and placed him on assisted breathing. A passenger sitting next to the driver was extracted from the car while fully conscious, suffering from contusions to his back and limbs. The driver of the car was pulled while he was partially conscious, with head and multi-system injuries. We provided him with life-saving medical treatment, anesthetized him and put him on assisted breathing.”
“The driver of the second car, a man in his 50s, came out of the vehicle fully conscious, suffering from contusions.”
“After the complex and extended extraction of the victims, we evacuated them to the hospital in ambulances and MDA mobile treatment units, with two in serious condition, one in moderate condition, and the driver of the second car in light-to-moderate condition.”
Police closed eastbound Route 5 to traffic from Qesem Junction on, redirecting traffic through Route 444.