updated7. June 2022, 23:04
On Tuesday followingnoon, a gondola detached from its lifting arm and dragged four people down with it. One man died instantly, the other three were injured, one seriously.
The accident happened at the National Stud in Avenches, when a gondola tore from an articulated arm at a height of 12 meters and fell down.
M.Rindlisbacher
According to initial information, four people were on a lifting platform on the grounds of the national stud to ring and count storks in their nests. When they were at a height of regarding 12 meters, for reasons that the investigation has yet to clarify, the gondola detached from the articulated arm and tore the four occupants down with it.
One of the people, a 76-year-old Swiss resident in the canton of Berne who worked as a volunteer for the Swiss Stork association, died immediately. The other three inmates included two Agroscope employees, a 58-year-old man and a woman 24-year-old woman, as well as the head of the company that owned the gondola (a 48-year-old Swiss citizen who lives in the region).
Another person is in serious condition
They were taken to the Inselspital in Bern and the Kantonsspital in Friborg (HFR) in an ambulance and a helicopter. The last-mentioned injured person is in a serious condition, writes the Vaud canton police in a statement.
The prosecutor on duty went to the scene of the accident. The prosecutor’s office opened a criminal investigation and assigned the investigation to the cantonal police with the support of the traffic unit and inspectors of the security police’s forensic brigade.
The accident required the use of a REGA helicopter, three ambulances from the CSU-nvb (Nord vaudois-Broye) and Murten, the Emergency Support Team (ESU, for witnesses and people on site), an inspector from SUVA, an inspector from BUL (Service for Accident Prevention in Agriculture), a patrol from the cantonal police of Bern, five patrols from the gendarmerie of the canton of Vaud and investigators from the security police of the canton of Vaud.
