At least 11 people were injured when a bus crashed into a tree and an electric pole on Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv on Monday evening.
Among those injured were an 11-year-old girl in critical condition, a 49-year-old woman and a 76-year-old man in serious condition, a 39-year-old man in moderate condition, and seven people in light condition.
Medics and paramedics treated and evacuated the wounded to Wolfson Medical Center and Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Magen David Adom said.
The wounded included pedestrians and passengers on the bus, Magen David Adom said.
Cause of accident not immediately known
MDA paramedic Binyamin Parker described the crash as “very serious” and said the 11-year-old girl was unconscious, without a pulse, and not breathing when emergency teams reached her.
“She had severe injuries to her body after being hit by a bus,” Parker said. “We provided life-saving medical treatment and evacuated her to the hospital in critical condition while fighting for her life.”
MDA said the child suffered multisystem trauma and was evacuated while undergoing CPR. Parker said additional MDA teams treated 10 other wounded people at the scene, including two people in serious condition and one in moderate condition.
United Hatzalah paramedic Yaron Schiff, who was at the scene on Dizengoff Street, said the bus had struck a tree “in a significant way” and that a trapped person was still being extracted from the vehicle.
“I have 41 years of experience, and I do not understand how the accident happened,” Schiff said. “The bus went up onto the sidewalk, stopped at the tree, and the tree collapsed.”
The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but witnesses and passengers told officers at the scene that the driver lost control of the vehicle and ran off the road.
Residents in the area reported a power outage following the outage.
This is a developing story.