Pregnant Woman Due To Give Birth Today Killed In Spanish Car Rally

A heavily-pregnant woman killed in Spain's worst-ever rally accident was due to give birth today.

Ana Cayazzo and partner Miguel Caridad, both in their 20s, died instantly when they were struck by one of the race cars as it lost control on a bend.

Poignant pictures - posted by Miguel on his Facebook page before Saturday's tragedy near La Coruña in Galicia, north-west Spain - show him tenderly patting his girlfriend's belly.

Town hall officials in Cambre, the neighbouring town to Carral where the accident happened, told a local paper Ana was nine months pregnant and due to give birth Monday.

Miguel, a keen motor racing fan, is understood to have persuaded her to watch the rally a short drive from their home.

Tragedy struck just before 8pm when driver Sergio Tabeayo Sande, who comes from Carral, lost control of his Peugeot 206 XS on a bend and smashed into a 20-strong crowd of spectators.

Four women, two men and a 13-year-old girl were reportedly killed in the crash, with 16 people including several children injured, some seriously.

Another pregnant woman was reportedly among those who died.  

Three other people killed in the Spanish rally tragedy were named as Marcos Prego, Sandra Maria Ares and her 13-year-old daughter Aroa, from Carral.

It was initially thought the dead youngster was eight but authorities later confirmed she was a teenager.

Mr Prego was watching the rally with his son who was injured and remained in hospital. Sandra's son is also among the injured.  

Four children, including two who are in intensive care, were still being cared for in hospital.

One of the seven adults still in hospital was also in a 'very serious condition' in intensive care.

The first ambulance is said to have taken nearly half an hour to reach the scene.

Initial reports said the spectators killed and injured had been asked to move on from the unprotected bend by a steward moments before the accident but returned when he left.

But Carral mayor Jose Luis Fernandez Mouriño told a radio programme as a police probe into the accident got underway that he would have stood in the same spot if he had gone to see the race with his children. 

He said: 'We're often daring and stand where there's no security but in this case apparently there was no danger.'

Local Civil Guard traffic chief Francisco Javier Molano, revealing five of the six seriously injured are children, said all the victims were on the right hand side of the bend near a church where the accident happened.

He added: 'All the documentation, the drivers and the vehicles had been checked and everything was correct.

'Despite this, terrible events of this kind happen.'

One of the friends of the dead couple claimed that although organisers had asked spectators on the left of the bend to move back from the road, those on the right who were hit by the out-of-control car were not given any instructions to move away.

Witnesses to Saturday's tragedy complained the first ambulance had taken 20 minutes to reach the scene, although officials insisted the race had been suspended immediately after the accident so paramedics could get to the area as soon as possible.

Seven ambulances took the injured to three hospitals in the nearby city of La Coruña.

The driver and his co-pilot, named as Luis Miguel Prado Santos, were unhurt but are being counselled by experts.

Carral mayor Jose Fernandez Mouriño said he had spoken to the driver of the car that careered into the group of around 20 spectators but he could not remember anything about the accident.

He told journalists after trying to console Sergio Tabeayo Sande: 'What he wants to do is disappear. He's absolutely devastated.'

culled from Dailymail.