In the Karaganda region, a train driver and his assistant were severely electrocuted with 27,000 volts. The incident occurred on a stretch of track, reports Channel 31. Relatives of the victims claim that the employer is trying to shift the blame onto the railway workers themselves.
According to relatives, that evening there was a breakdown of the electric locomotive, and the driver allegedly received an order to fix the problem and clear the train from the tracks within 20 minutes, as other trains were following. "The assistant is helping him at the moment he gets into the current. To pull him out, he tugs at his T-shirt. And he himself gets into the current," says Kanagat Koimanova, a relative of driver Yerzhan Koimanov.
The victims were taken to Moyynty station on another electric locomotive, and then for four more hours in the vestibule of a passenger car to Agadyr station. Relatives from the very beginning asked to send the victims to Karaganda by air ambulance. "They kept them in Agadyr for a day. Why didn't they call a plane or helicopter? They waited all day for an ambulance from Karaganda. They waited for a helicopter, a plane, and a car," said the driver's uncle, Orazaly Koimanov.
His sister Aida Koimanova said the burn is very severe. "It went down to the bone. We just want justice. Now they want to make my brother out to be guilty," the woman claims. The wife of assistant driver Berdigali Gabdulin, Perizat Seidakhmet, also fears that their husbands will be blamed for the accident. She claims that the men did everything according to instructions and regulations.
Yerzhan Koimanov has 16 years of experience on the railway, and Berdigali Gabdulin has one and a half years. According to relatives, the driver has burns covering up to 50% of his body surface, and the assistant about 15%. "One patient is hospitalized in the burn unit, his condition is assessed as moderate severity, stable. The second patient is hospitalized in the intensive care unit. His condition is serious," commented Ksenia Derevyashkina, head of the situational center of the trauma service of the Karaganda region.
KTZ responded that already in Moyynty the victims were taken from the scene by an ambulance team. "The circumstances and causes of the incident are being established. The investigation is being conducted by the Main State Labor Inspectorate of the Karaganda region. Until the investigation is completed, it is premature to draw conclusions about the causes and circumstances of the incident," noted the press service of KTZ - Freight Transportation LLP.