The Christmas and New Year’s holiday period were overall deadly this year, despite the efforts by government agencies to supervise, control, and regulate traffic and accidents. Unfortunately, the 43,000 volunteers and government employees who worked throughout the holidays on the highways and express roads could not curtail the number of accidents (262) nor the ever-rising death toll of 42.
The emergency teams, traffic control officers and volunteer assistants carried out over 30,000 operations to help people.
An important statistic is the fact that of the 262 accidents (up from 247 in 2023), some 206 involved motorcycles. One of the latest accidents to be reported was the death of an entire family, father, mother and young child, on the highway to Puerto Plata as their motorcycle crashed.
As a result of all of this chaos, local hospitals were flooded with accident victims. For example, the University Trauma Hospital Dr. Ney Arias Lora, reported more than 480 patients treated for a laundry list of causes, with traffic accidents being the most prominent.
Curiously, the venerable Trauma Hospital Dario Contreras, which was formerly the go-to place for accident victims, received fewer patients than usual during these holidays. Perhaps because the newer hospital, Dr. Ney Arias Lora, was perceived to be a better or a closer option.
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Hoy
El Caribe
El Caribe
Listin Diario
Listin Diario
Diario Libre
7 January 2025