Three die in solo vehicle crash in southwestern Taiwan

台灣西南部的自撞車禍釀三死

Four of the five people were thrown out of the car, one trapped inside


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Tainan police are investigating a solo vehicle crash that occurred in the afternoon on New Year’s Day that left three dead and two injured, EBC News reported.

Tainan City Fire Bureau responded to a report of an overturned sedan near the Xinwei gas station of Provincial Highway 17’s Beimen section, according to a CNA report. Sixteen personnel and seven vehicles from Tainan City and Chiayi County fire bureaus came to the scene.

When they arrived, they found the sedan seriously deformed and the wreckage was scattered across the highway. Personnel also found four of the five passengers had been thrown out of the car, and one was trapped inside. The five victims included four males in their 30s and one female in her 40s.

The rescuers used hydraulic cutters to free the trapped individual. The woman and one of the men suffered out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). They were all rushed to local hospitals, where three of them were later pronounced dead, per EBC News.

Liu Chuan-fu (劉全福), Syuejia Precinct chief of Tainan City Police Department said that the police were looking into whether the 20-year-old driver, surnamed Chen (陳), had been drunk driving.

According to the precinct’s preliminary investigation, the sedan was traveling northbound on the highway when it struck a concrete guard barrier before hitting the median strip and flipping over, landing upside down on the southbound lane.