Image: EVA MANHART (APA)
At the time they were accused of blocking an ambulance on the way to a resuscitation in Schwechat. Despite the alerting of a Lower Austrian rescue car and a helicopter, the patient died after about an hour of resuscitation at the scene.
The spokeswoman for the Vienna public prosecutor’s office, Judith Ziska, now explained to the APA request that “that police documentation does not indicate whether or not the activists saw the ambulance”. “It also turned out that the Lower Austrian vehicle would have been faster in any case”said Ziska. The investigations are therefore included “Order of June 1st” been dropped, the prosecutor said.
The “last generation” practiced sharp criticism of the emergency services on Friday in a first reaction. The Viennese professional rescue have “proven to spread misinformation”so spokeswoman Marina Canaval on APA request. “A number of media have blamed us for the death of a man. Politicians have taken the opportunity to defame us and called us terrorists”it was said. “To date there has been no apology”this way of dealing with climate activists “absolutely undignified”.
“Any type of traffic obstruction can have serious consequences”
In response to an APA request, the Viennese professional rescue service pointed out in a first statement on Friday that “that the activists were reported by the Vienna police and not by the Vienna professional rescue service”. The communication was always neutral and without any kind of blame, it said. The rescue also emphasized that day-to-day operations are always about human lives. “Any type of traffic obstruction is disadvantageous for the emergency services and can have serious consequences”was reported.
The “last generation” blocked early traffic at around 8 a.m. on May 10 at the roundabout. An ambulance on the way to reanimate an elderly man in the Lower Austrian border area got stuck a few minutes later on Grenzackerstrasse, just 250 meters from the protest site. At the same time, an ambulance from the Lower Austrian Red Cross and a Christophorus 9 emergency doctor helicopter were alerted and arrived at the scene shortly after 8 a.m. “We then resuscitated the patient for more than an hour”, said the spokesman for the Lower Austrian Red Cross, Andreas Zenker, to the APA. Despite all efforts, the man was then pronounced dead at 9:14 a.m., it said.
According to the police, the ambulance could only continue after the police officers intervened – far behind in the dense traffic jam. “Colleagues arranged vehicles centimeter by centimeter and directed them to the side so that the rescue team had a narrow path to clear”, said spokeswoman Irina Steirer of the APA one day after the protest. The police also did not approach the protesters in this regard, said the state police afterwards. The police nevertheless showed the four activists because of “Endangerment of physical security (paragraph 89 StGB)” at.
The “last generation” denied the allegation at the time, but admitted that a “error happened” and that, as is usually the case, the rescue service was not informed about the protest site. The climate protection group came under massive public criticism after the incident. Various voices from politics called for tougher penalties for the blockade actions or a tightening of the assembly law.
Source: Nachrichten
