After a 40-kilometer odyssey 82-year-old German drives his car into the Rhine and drowns
Tragedy in Germany: An 82-year-old senior citizen wandered more than 40 kilometers through Baden-Württemberg in his car and then drove into the Rhine. Inside the recovered Mazda, the emergency services found the man's lifeless body.
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- A man drove his car into the Rhine in Baden-Württemberg after a kilometer-long odyssey and sank along with the vehicle.
- The next day, the emergency services recovered the car from the river after a major search operation in the afternoon.
- The dead 82-year-old driver was still at the wheel of the vehicle.
An apparently disoriented 82-year-old man from Rhineland-Palatinate drove his car into the Rhine and drowned after a mile-long odyssey in Baden-Württemberg. After a lengthy search, special police boats found the vehicle on Sunday afternoon and rescued it from the river near Rheinstetten, according to the police in Offenburg. The body of the 82-year-old man from the municipality of Bergzabern in Rhineland-Palatinate, who had been searched for since Saturday, was found inside.
The distance between the scene of the accident and the deceased's home is around 40 kilometers, depending on the route. According to the police, the man, who had been reported missing "due to disorientation", drove his car into the Rhine at a ferry pier in Neuburgweier near Rheinstetten on Saturday evening for unknown reasons.
Strong current interrupts night-time rescue
Several witnesses observed the incident and alerted the police and emergency services. It was still unclear at the time who the driver was.
A large-scale rescue operation was unsuccessful. All rescue and recovery attempts, including the use of a diving robot and divers, were initially unsuccessful during the night. It was not until Sunday that the car with the deceased inside was located by a police sounding boat in the Upper Rhine and recovered by a second special police boat.