Wir fahrn fahrn fahrn auf der Autobahn

Written by eklastic

The German highways, the “Autobahnen”, are famous for their stretches with no speed limit. Which is a bit of a myth because even though there are no set limits the rule is always to drive weather and traffic appropriate. And even the limitless stretches are far and few between.

But no matter, an autobahn is no place for pedestrians you would think.

Yesterday we were driving on the A5 towards Frankfurt when the cars in front of us slowed down and came to a stop. Luckily no brakes screeching – everybody was paying attention and just rolled to a stop. Pretty soon we heard an ambulance siren approaching and the cars split to clear a lane for emergency vehicle access. It was a beautiful “Rettungsgasse” if not a 100% correct one. It’s supposed to be further to the left but it worked: a wide lane was opened for five ambulances, three large fire engines, a few smaller ones and a number of police cars.

We didn’t move for 90 minutes. It was scorching hot so people either locked their cars and had the aircon running or they opened their car and started to walk around.

We saw the emergency helicopter land and take off again. I could have gone closer but I only went as far as the brigde and was grateful of the shade. I couldn’t see anything except for the large fire engines and their flashing blue lights, about 100m behind the bridge. I detest gawkers and I intentionally stayed away.

Here you can see the fire engines blocking the road.

We could see no wreckage when we were finally allowed to pass. I’ve since checked the local radio stations incident report and the accompanying photo was horrific. A Renault from France with three passengers crashed without the involvement of another vehicle, reasons so far unknown. Two of the passenger had to be cut out of the wreck and needed to be resuscitated. One was airlifted to a hospital in Frankfurt, the other two were transported to the nearest hospital. I wish them all well and a good recovery.

Cellpic Sunday

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11 thoughts on “Wir fahrn fahrn fahrn auf der Autobahn”

    1. Very. They have since updated the report and one of the passengers has died. My nephew is an emergency medical physician and accidents like that are part of his job. He says that resuscitation after a trauma is very tricky and often not successful in the long run.

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    1. I checked. English-German dictionaries give two possible translations for the German “Reanimation”, i.e. reanimation and resuscitation. Maybe one is a more technical term, I wouldn’t know.

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    2. Some more digging. “reanimation” is a false friend, “resuscitation” is the correct word. Although “reanimation” does exist in English but apparently it is mainly used for reanimating dead bodies (I guess to turn into zombies). I’ll correct it in my post. Thank you for pointing it out. “Again what learned.” ( = a commonly used term in Denglish used to denote that one has learned something new)

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    1. It’s easier if you grow up in Europe. So many languages close by.

      BTW: The title is the first (and second and third and fourth …) line of a song of the band Kraftwerk – their electro pop song “Autobahn” was an international hit, reaching place 25 in the US charts in 1974.

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      2. It’s the only one that I know from this group. Electro pop was never my kind of music. But “Autobahn” is played quite often on the radio here. Also, because it is iconic for a long highway drive – straight, no intersections, and boring.

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