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“A life has ended because of me”

After many mishaps and various accidents, the Rally Dakar He showed his rawest face again this Tuesday, during the ninth stage. Ales Lopraiswho was leading the truck category with authority, did not start today to make himself available to the Saudi Arabian authorities and help in the investigation into the death of an Italian fan after being hit by his vehicle.

The Czech driver ran over a spectator who was taking pictures of the race, badly positioned in the path of the participants, while overcoming a dune at full speed. After the blow he managed to get back up but immediately collapsed on the sand. He died during the evacuation in the medicalized helicopter heading to the hospital.

Loprais did not even notice the accident, because at no time did he have the 69-year-old victim in his field of vision. The organization notified him of what happened once he arrived at the camp, where the commissioners showed him the images.

Once warned of what happened, the Czech driver recorded and shared a video on the networks in which, visibly affected, he explains what happened from his perspective and shows a video from inside his truck that shows that neither he nor his co-driver saw in At no time did the spectator run over while they were overcoming the dune.

“I have very bad news. We were already in bed when the stewards showed us a video of an accident from the race, in which we hit a man who was taking photos of his wife behind a dune. He was injured, nauseated for two or three hours, and then suffered a heart attack when he was being taken to the hospital. A human life has been ended because of me, indirectly, because I was the one driving», explained Loprais in the video.

“The man was Italian, I don’t know his name from the investigation, a 69-year-old person who came to see the Dakar and who unfortunately was behind that dune and none of us saw him.” he added while sending his condolences to the family and friends of the deceased and assured that this will “accompany the rest” of his life.

This Wednesday the Czech pilot had the intention of continuing his participation in the Dakar, as he left the 500-kilometre link that took the participants to the starting line of the special, but finally he made himself available to the local justice system and could not conclude it. This was confirmed this morning by the organization, which pointed out that Loprais “has made himself available to the authorities for the usual investigation in these cases. Therefore, he could not start the special of the day ».

reckless bystanders

The death of Livio Sassinotti, the Italian spectator run over, is the latest in a long list of tragedies at the Dakar Rally, which already has more than 30 deaths among its participants throughout its history, and almost 50. between spectators, journalists and locals.

It could, however, not be the only one, because as the Argentine pilot Juan Cruz Yacopini explained to his country’s newspaper ‘Clarion‘, he narrowly avoided being run over with his Toyota Hilux by another misplaced spectator during the same stage.

«A spectator wanted to cross to the other side of the dune and fell just as he was going up. Today I tell it as an anecdote, but it is worrying how close they want to experience the Dakar », he explained about the attitude of some fans who travel to follow the race.

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