The descriptions of what doctors and nurses faced in Chios following the collision between the speedboat carrying traffickers and irregular migrants and the Coast Guard vessel are shocking. The situation, according to union vice-president and nursing service deputy director Maria Sarantinidou, speaking on the “Breaking News Now” show on MEGA, was completely different from all other shipwrecks they had dealt with. As presenter Natasa Giamali emphasized, the 15 people were killed by trauma injuries, not drowning. Ms. Sarantinidou noted that it resembled a multi-fatality car accident, while making the shocking claim that “the body bags were dripping blood.” It should be noted that on Saturday afternoon, February 7, six minors were successfully airlifted from Chios to the “Agia Sophia” Children’s Hospital, with most suffering serious fractures.
Chios tragedy: “Like a multi-fatality car accident”
Maria Sarantinidou emphasized that the injured and dead had suffered severe trauma. “Since 2015 and before 2015, we had many shipwrecks and we dealt with drowning victims. There were times – it gives you chills to say it – when we put three children on one stretcher. Three drowned children would fit on the stretcher as we took them down to the morgue. This time what we faced was completely different. This time we had severe traumatic brain injuries, serious trauma, fractures, ruptured spleens, ruptured diaphragms, neck fractures in children. Patients who appeared as if they were from a multi-fatality car accident. These people had been severely beaten. The body bags were dripping blood. And of course this was confirmed after the autopsies were completed by forensic doctors from Athens,” says Maria Sarantinidou, union vice-president and nursing service deputy director.
