He finds it terrible what happened, says the truck driver who ran into a neighborhood barbecue in the south side

Most relatives and victims see driver Juan S. (48) for the first time on this first session in the Rotterdam court. He drove in August 2022 with his red-white truck from a dike in Nieuw-Beijerland, at the hamlet of Zuidzijde, and ended up on a neighborhood barbecue. Seven people were killed, including an unborn baby.

Juan S. did not rode the dike on the purpose of the judge immediately at the start. Nobody wanted this tragedy. Not the driver either. But according to the Public Prosecution Service, he is to blame for the accident. After all, he was not allowed to control a truck because of his epilepsy. He would not have taken his medication as prescription. And he would have used cocaine.

The Spanish interpreter is close to the suspect. Whether the driver probably wants to say something, she translates the words of the judge. He offers all the relatives his apologies, he says. And then: « I’m also burdened by this. »

‘Eighth Dead’

He finds it terrible what happened, he will say a few times throughout the day. But he is also a victim. He lost everything. His wife (from whom he divorced), his daughter, his house and work. There are tears in the public gallery when he says he is the eighth dead. After a suspension, he explains that he meant to say that he himself would rather have died.

How the accident could happen, it is about that. The disastrous on Saturday of the disaster is meticulously. That day, Juan S. had fired a load in Rotterdam, he was on his way to a resting place to rest and then continue home, in Spain. Because of diversions, he lost on the narrow roads of the Hoeksche Waard, an area where you don’t want to get lost with a truck, just because times is virtually impossible. The GPS system sent him in all directions, he says.

He remembers that a resident, a man with glasses, climbed into the cabin with him and pointed him the way with a road map. He knows nothing about the accident that happened afterwards. « I know I was driving, and then I was in a police car. »

Cocaine pie

The OM consulted experts state that S. had an epileptic seizure. He had ended up in the hospital four times before after an attack. On the day of the accident, the attack could be triggered by previous use of cocaine. Juan admitted that he had used cocaine a week earlier at a party. According to the toxicologist, that was shorter than 48 hours before the accident. During the accident he had a cocaine pipe in his pocket.

He himself also stated earlier that he had had an epilepsy attack. He had a headache after the accident. When it was asked why that was, he said at the time, « Because of my epilepsy. » A police officer asked him when he had last had an epileptic attack: « 27 August 2022, in the Netherlands. »

Now he firmly denies that. He had no symptoms of epilepsy, he says. If it would have been the case, he would have felt coming. Then he immediately takes medication. He always took medication faithfully, he says. His counselor Ten Doesschate points out that he said just after the accident that he could not remember anything. She thinks he was mainly ‘filling in’ afterwards.

For a long time it is about the possible epileptic attack. The judge reads witness statements that show that after the accident there was no contact with the driver. « I saw his face that he was absent. I pulled him out of the truck, he couldn’t stand on his legs. » Another saw a cramping in his hands.

Juan S. currently lives with his father. He has no income himself, because he is not allowed to drive, not even in a passenger car. He needs a driver’s license to get to a workplace. His father and brother support him financially. They also pay the school for his daughter, who has Down’s syndrome and goes to a special school. His boss at Truckersbedrijf El Mosca said that he can return to work once he has received his driver’s license.

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