They had been looking forward to it for more than a year, the builders of CV De Dwarsliggers in Prinsenbeek. Finally, on this first day of Pentecost, the big carnival parade in Boemeldonck could take place. It was pouring rain, but especially the accident with a part of their car, however, spoiled the celebration. “It was very difficult to walk out of the parade.”
Jorrit Meeuwissen is one of those builders. He sounds very excited when we let him look back. “I was standing on the car myself when at one point something started to roll. I saw right away that it was wrong. People who belong to our car and supervisors of the organization immediately took action.”
The rescuers immediately took care of a woman and her son. They had been hit by an object about two meters in diameter that had fallen from about ten meters from the car for unknown reasons. The woman broke her shoulder; her son escaped unharmed.
“You don’t wish this on anyone, this is very annoying.”
“Fortunately, only one spectator was injured, but you don’t wish this on anyone. We have sought and obtained direct contact with her family through the organization. And at their express request it was decided to walk on and we tried to make the best of it. We were happy that this was possible, but on the other hand it was also very annoying”, says Meeuwissen.
Robbert Janssen, the secretary of the overarching Beeckse Algemene Karnavalsstichting (BAK), endorses the lecture of De Dwarsliggers. According to him, the woman is from Etten-Leur and she and family from Prinsenbeek have been one of the regular visitors of the carnival parade in Prinsenbeek for years. “Initially it looked serious. She is now doing well under the circumstances, although she had to be hospitalized. But she might be able to go home this evening.”
“Despite the rain, it remained pleasantly busy everywhere.”
Janssen was also disappointed for another reason: “It has remained dry here for weeks. Just as the parade was about to leave, it started to rain. It gets harder and harder and it hasn’t stopped. What I do like: apart from parents with children, almost all spectators stayed and everywhere along the road it was pleasantly busy.”
The parade continued after the accident and CV De Dwarsliggers’ car even received applause. Janssen: “Police and fire brigade were quick, they saw that there was an incident, so that the parade could be continued.” The award ceremony, later in the evening, was not canceled either. The board of the BAK took this opportunity to support the victim, but also the builders of CV De Dwarsliggers. Like Meeuwissen, Janssen also plans to look for the victim on Monday.
“We want to prevent this from happening again.”
The BAK takes the accident very seriously. Janssen: “We have a technical committee that will investigate with the men from De Dwarsliggers what went wrong. Was something wrongly welded or broken or was it due to another cause? In any case, we want clarity, because we want to prevent something like this from happening again.”
In the video below, which is circulating on Twitter, you can see that part of the carnival wagon comes down.
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