Police rescue IDF soldier trapped in luggage compartment of moving bus
Yishai Halevi says he asked the driver to open the compartment to get his bag, had it closed on him; bus company claims he acted ‘contrary to the instructions’ and climbed inside
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Police on Friday were called to rescue an Israeli soldier who was trapped in the luggage compartment of a moving bus.
Officers stopped the bus, which was traveling from Tel Aviv to Kiryat Hashoma, on Route 65 in northern Israel to let out the trapped soldier.
The soldier, who identified himself in a video aired by Channel 12 news as Yishai Halevi, said he asked the driver to open the luggage compartment during a pit stop so he could get something from his bag.
“I went in to [the compartment] a little. After a few seconds he [the driver] closed the door on me and began driving,” Halevi says in cellphone footage filmed from inside the compartment.
“This is really unpleasant,” he adds, saying it was difficult to breathe.
The network also aired audio from a police dispatch in which an officer can be heard saying Halevi called his mother to say he was stuck in the compartment and that Egged, the bus company, could not reach the driver to tell him to stop.
ערכתי מאות ראיונות, כזה עוד לא היה לי: שטוראי ישי הלוי יצא הביתה לשבת, הוא לא תיאר לעצמו, שחלק מהדרך הביתה לק.שמונה הוא יעביר בתוך תא מטען של אוטובוס נוסע. (בתמונה: קטע מסרטון שהעביר ישי למשפחתו מתוך תא המטען של האוטובוס). @N12News pic.twitter.com/vgn0nxgnRO
— אור רביד | Or Ravid (@OrRavid) March 6, 2020
Egged rejected Halevi’s version of events, saying another soldier had asked the driver to open the compartment. Halevi then climbed into the compartment while it was open and the driver did not notice he was inside, the company claimed.
“The bus driver is a professional, dedicated and veteran driver… and he never encountered such an unusual incident in which an IDF soldier acts contrary to the instructions while unnecessarily endangering his life,” Egged told Channel 12.
The company called on passengers not to fully enter the compartment when putting in or taking out their luggage.
In January, an American tourist was trapped in the luggage hold of a bus while traveling from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The 19-year-old from New Jersey called police from under the moving bus from his cell phone. Police, who tracked the bus using GPS, stopped the bus about 20 minutes later, and helped him out.
The Times of Israel Community.