A man has died in Sevilla after being struck by a car and dragged for more than five kilometres.
The horrific incident began at around 8am Monday on Calle Lumbreras, near the Alameda de Hercules in the centre of the city.
CCTV footage reportedly shows the pedestrian walking unsteadily in the middle of the road before falling and remaining on the ground.
Moments later, a car exiting a garage drives over him. The driver, unaware of what happened, continued their journey with the man lodged underneath the vehicle.
Two people were travelling in the car. The driver first headed to the San Bernardo stop to drop off a relative. She later told officers that a warning light for the handbrake appeared on the dashboard and she assumed it was a mechanical issue.
She did not notice anything unusual and kept driving until someone flagged her down at the junction of Avenida Ramon y Cajal with Avenida San Francisco Javier, alerting her that something was hanging from the underside of the car.
Only then did she realise it was a body. Emergency services rushed to the scene, deploying firefighters, police and 061 health crews.
Firefighters had to lift the car and recover the victim from beneath it. The body was then placed in a fire-service ambulance for an initial judicial inspection and removal.
The Toyota involved in the incident was seized and taken to police facilities for forensic examination.
The victim was transferred to the Institute of Legal Medicine in Sevilla, where a post-mortem will determine whether he died at the moment of impact or as a result of being dragged along the road for several kilometres.
The emergency services received the first call at around 8.20am from Avenida Ramon y Cajal. Heavy rain was falling across the city at the time, which investigators believe may have significantly reduced visibility and contributed to the driver failing to detect the collision.
The case is now in the hands of Sevilla’s Court of Instruction No. 2. The victim’s identity has not yet been released, though sources suggest he may have been a homeless man known in the area around the Alameda and Calle Torneo.
Read more Andalucia news at the Spanish Eye.
