Alcohol-impaired drivers cause two serious crashes in Styria

Two serious crashes involving alcohol-impaired young drivers left four people injured in Styria on Sunday morning, ORF reported.

At about 6 a.m. in Großwilfersdorf, in the Hartberg-Fürstenfeld district, a 22-year-old driver from Burgenland lost control of his car near a traffic island and left the road. The car crossed a field, broke through a wooden fence anchored by concrete bases and hit a tree, uprooting it. It came to a stop in the garden of a house.

The seriously injured driver managed to free himself from the wreckage but remained on the ground in front of the car. Nearby fishermen who witnessed the crash went to help and alerted emergency services. A medical team treated him before he was taken to hospital. Police said he was heavily intoxicated.

Later, in Selzthal in the Liezen district, a 20-year-old driver from Upper Austria said he had been travelling too fast when his car crossed into the oncoming lane on a bend and collided head-on with another car.

The 62-year-old driver of the second car was trapped and had to be freed by firefighters. Both drivers and a passenger in the 20-year-old’s car were taken to hospital with injuries of unspecified severity. Police found the young driver moderately intoxicated and seized his driving licence.