It should have been their dream vacation, but it became a complete nightmare for the Knapen family from Helmond. The family had a heavy car accident en route to their holiday destination in Italy. Their car crashed with a different car, spinning, overturned several times and ended upside down on the highway. Bart (45), Corinne (42), Keano (14) and Kelso (12) were injured. “We ended up in a horror film,” father Bart Knapen looks back.
Just like many families, the Knapen family is on their way to their holiday destination. They eagerly look forward to their wonderful place under the sun. The family is not broad, but with their saved money they have found their dream holiday in Tuscany, Italy.
With their caravan behind the car they drive towards the Italian campsite. Everything is going well. But twenty minutes before they arrive at the final destination on the A12 at Pisa, fate.
“When I close my eyes, I see everything happening again.”
Father Bart is hard to talk about it two weeks later. “We just drive out a tunnel when a car catches up with us and immediately starts to drive softer again. I catch up on it again. He catches me up again and then suddenly goes full brake.”
Bart knows how to avoid the car for him, but then things go completely wrong. “I see it happen and brake a bit. Not too much, because we have a caravan hanging behind us and it will dance when I start braking hard,” he explains.
“I can’t go to the right, because there is a crash barrier and behind it a canyon. I shoot to the left because there it is free, I think. But I had not seen that a car is still coming at 130 kilometers per hour.”
“We car starts to spin and we’re going up three times.”
The two cars collide hard. Because of the blow, the caravan breaks loose from their car. “When I close my eyes, I see everything happening again. The car starts to spin and we are going over three times. The motorist who has popped on us has pushed us further out of a kind of shock reaction,” he says.
Dozens of meters away, the car comes upside down, with the other car on top. “I suddenly hear a scream and I see my son hanging behind me. We all hang on our head. I still say while sliding:” Stay sitting guys, stay sitting, until we are completely stylizing. ” I don’t remember how everyone finally got out of it. “
Five ambulances are coming to the scene of the accident. His wife Corinne has to go to a hospital with the trauma helicopter. Their sons Keano and Kelso are taken with the ambulances just like their father.
“For 24 hours I don’t know where my wife gone. In the end I think she is in the same hospital at Pisa. Her condition is criticism and we can’t get to her.”
“The children have nightmares.”
The family has to stay in the hospital for three days and has several bone fractures and bruises to the accident. Corinne is the worst with a number of broken ribs and a broken shoulder. There is also a deep cut in her arm. She has to stay in the hospital for almost a week.
To make matters worse, the family is lost a lot of things during and after the accident. “A laptop, a jewelry box, a mobile phone and six hundred euros in cash. It’s all gone. I finally found my phone on the highway.”
Bart hopes that the travel insurance will reimburse a lot, but he also fears that he is for, for example Total lossDeclared car and caravan will not get much back. That’s why his friends are the family started a collection campaign.
The family is now home again, but the shock is still good. “We still can’t sleep. The children have nightmares. We ended up in a horror film.”
