Snow on the road

Vehicle and its occupants plunged into the Loiblbach stream

The vehicle landed on its roof in the Loiblbach.(Bild: zVg/ Krone KREATIV)

Three car occupants had a stroke of luck on the Loibl Pass on Tuesday afternoon. Their car plunged headfirst into a stream bed. However, several accidents occurred in Carinthia due to the snowfall.

The 65-year-old driver, whose car was already fitted with summer tires, lost control of the car on the wintry road on Tuesday afternoon. "The car left the snow-covered road on a slight bend and crashed over an embankment and a ledge, overturned and landed in the stream, where it came to rest on its roof," explains Ingemar Ulbricht, commander of the Ferlach fire department and one of the first people at the scene of the accident.

Commander as first responder
"I was driving the snow plow on the Loiblpass federal highway when the call came in," says Ulbricht in an interview with the "Krone" newspaper. The firefighter was only a few meters away from the scene of the accident and therefore headed straight to the crashed vehicle. "When I arrived, the three occupants had already been freed from the wreck." 

The driver (65), his wife (61) and their daughter (23) were then handed over to the Red Cross and taken to Klagenfurt Hospital. The Loiblpass federal highway had to be closed to all traffic during the recovery work.

Car overturned in the Rosental valley
A driver (52) from Germany skidded on a wet road in St. Jakob im Rosental on Tuesday afternoon. The car hit the embankment, overturned, was thrown back onto the road and came to a standstill lying on its roof. The driver was injured in the accident and had to be taken to Villach Regional Hospital by ambulance. 

Several operations due to the weather
But it wasn't just the Ferlach fire department that had to be called out on Tuesday. "There were several traffic accidents in Carinthia due to the weather, vehicles had to be secured", according to the provincial alarm and warning center. In addition, some trees blocked roads in Carinthia and some were pushed onto electricity pylons by the weight of the snow. "The Carinthian fire departments had 130 call-outs from 6.30 in the morning until late in the evening. But the precipitation has stopped and things are calming down."