Police: Driver who killed 6 near Lod tests positive for drugs, alcohol

Police said Sunday that a driver who killed six people last week after running a red light and crashing into another car, tested positive for several drugs and a high alcohol level in his blood, confirming detectives' earlier suspicions.

Yaron Bracha's blood and urine samples tested positive for cocaine, marijuana, and three times the legal alcohol levels in the blood, police said.

Commander Ya'akov Cohen of the Shephelah District Traffic Police said that "the man can be defined as criminally neglectful, knowingly putting himself and his surrounding at risk."

Police expect an indictment to be served against Bracha within ten days for charges of manslaughter of six people, including his twin brother Eyal. The driver had given police his testimony, and claims he does not remember a single event from the night of the accident.

"It was shocking. It looked like a war zone," said Yonatan Keinan, a Magen David Adom paramedic who witnessed the accident. "I've been working for MDA for six years; I've dealt with innumerable accidents. But I can't remember another accident this shocking."

The accident occurred at about 1:30 A.M. Thursday, as five of the victims, all Egged bus drivers, were returning home from work in one car. The sixth fatality was Bracha's twin brother, Eyal. Yaron Bracha was seriously wounded in the crash.

Keinan and Samil Bakkar, the ambulance drivers, were returning to their MDA station after dealing with another case. As they passed through the Ginaton intersection, Bakkar said, he saw another car speeding by him from the cross street, where the light was then red. He pulled the ambulance over to the curb "and I said to the guy beside me, 'he won't stop, he won't stop, there will be an accident here.' I saw the second car start driving into the intersection and suddenly, boom. I heard such an explosion, a really terrible noise." He called MDA to inform the dispatcher of the accident, then he and Keinan raced to the scene.

Both cars were smashed to bits, Keinan said; one, a Hyundai Getz, was "like a crushed cola can.

"I ran first of all to the Hyundai and saw a terrible sight," he related. "Inside were five men, all on top of each other, and it seemed as if all were dead."

He asked Bakkar to confirm this, then ran to the other car, a Mazda. "There were two men in the car. One lay on the floor and was trapped beneath the glove compartment; he didn't respond to me, and I understood that he was dead. The second man groaned and cried to me to save him; he said he couldn't breathe."

Keinan broke the window to check the man's situation, then ran back to the Getz after Samil told him that one of its occupants was showing signs of life. "But it turned out that because of the car's state, I couldn't reach him and try to help him. I felt terribly helpless. Later, I understood that because of his severe injuries, I couldn't have helped him anyway, and he died en route to the hospital."

Meanwhile, Bakkar called for reinforcements, and the rescue crews began the lengthy job of extracting the casualties. Four of the Getz's occupants and the Mazda's passenger were dead; the other two casualties were taken to the hospital.

Prior to the accident, Yaron and Eyal Bracha, residents of Yehud, had been at a family event. Participants at the event told the police of a message Yaron left for his girlfriend, which seemed to indicate that he was drinking heavily. Based on this testimony, police obtained a warrant to search his cell phone.

The other five fatalities were Yitzhak Cohen, 42, of Ashdod and four Ashkelon residents: Moshe Ben-Gigi, 44; Aharon Benishi, 55; Michael Kashpur, 28; and Yona David, 51.