A 44-year-old female firefighter was run over getting into her car to go to work yesterday morning, and left lying in the road, severely injured.
That this kind of crime can happen anywhere is bad enough – but yesterday’s brutal hit-and-run took place in Leiria: the epicentre of recent tragedy, caused by Storm Kristin.
Everyone in Leiria has been focused on helping those ‘worse off’ than themselves since the ‘weather-bomb’ battered the municipality – and yet someone yesterday appears to have thought it was perfectly acceptable to run down a firefighter (the victim, Fátima Costa, will almost certainly have been wearing her uniform as she was going to work) and leave her lying, badly injured, in the road.
“It is so sad”, said neighbour Humberto Cordeiro. “We are living through a tragedy in which all the help is too little, and there is someone who commits a crime like this!”
Fátima Costa was discovered by neighbours – alerted by “a car insistently sounding its horn” – around 7.40am yesterday, in Casal Novo, Monte Redondo, Leiria.
Those who reached her first fetched blankets to protect her from the wind and rain while others physically had to run for help to the nearby fire station.
According to fire station chief Almeida Lopes, the firefighter with 15 years service suffered serious injuries to her pelvis, rib-cage, femur and face. She is currently interned in Leiria Hospital – and for the time being, there is little information on the car (or rather its driver) that caused her injuries, and then left her lying where she fell.
Hit-and-run incidents in Portugal are becoming alarmingly frequent. The crime of failing to provide help following an accident can be punishable with up to a year in prison.
Source: Correio da Manhã
