Last update - 00:00 04/03/2007
Driver in couple's death suspected of causing death by negligence
By Roni Singer-Heruti and Mijal Grinberg, Haaretz Correspondents
The driver of the Jeep that caused the deaths of Menachem and Nina Wisler in a car accident next to the Tzur Yigal community in the Sharon region is suspected of causing death by negligence, and not manslaughter.
The suspect was brought before the Kfar Saba Magistrate's Court Sunday for an extension of remand.
The initial investigation into the accident indicated that around 3:30 on Saturday afternoon the Wisler family headed from their home in Tzur Yigal in their Mazda. The children had been seated in the back seat with seat belts on.
When they arrived at the intersection outside their community they took a left turn toward Ra'anana and collided with a Jeep coming from the west.
One of the couple's children, a 6-year-old daughter, was seriously injured. The couple's two other children were lightly injured in the incident. The driver of the Jeep that collided with their vehicle was moderately hurt.
The driver of the Jeep is a 47-year-old Taibeh resident. Investigators believe that the driver ignored a red traffic light.
Yiftah Karni, a Magen David Adom emergency medical technician, described to Haaretz what he found at the scene of the accident, saying "when we arrived, we saw the parents on the ground, dead. An on-call MDA medic in Tzur Yigal had managed to extract the children from the vehicle by the time we had gotten there," he said.
"Two of the children were relatively fine, and they were ushered onto a bus so that they would not see their parents. It appeared as though they did not really understand what had happened. The girl was unconscious and had suffered trauma to the head and chest. We treated her at the scene, and after we stabilized her, we transferred her to the hospital," he said.
A total of 5 people were killed in traffic-related accidents over the weekend, including a 14-year old boy.