Stint with ten kids on board crashes into ditch in Capelle aan den IJssel; No injuries

A Stint - an electric cargo bike for transporting children - crashed into a ditch in Capelle aan den IJssel with ten kids on board on Tuesday afternoon. Everyone was shaken by the accident, but no one got hurt, a spokesperson for Veiligheidsregio Rotterdam-Rijnmond, the local coordinating office for the emergency services, told Rijnmond.

The accident happened on Noorderbreadth in the Oostgaarde-Noord district at around 4:00 p.m. “We came from a playground in Nieuwerkerk where we go often. This happened on the way back from it,” Jair Dias Santos of the after-school care facility involved told the broadcaster.

Two childcare workers were taking kids back to the childcare institution on two stints when they had to swerve for a stationary scooter in the road. The front Stint managed to maneuver past, but the other one ended up on the grass, and the driver lost control, Dias Santos said. Luckily, everyone involved escaped unharmed, he added.

A bystander rushed to help. Mees Naraat was working in Capelle aan den IJssel when he heard someone scream for help. “I saw that thing upside down in the water, and I jumped in,” he told Rijnmond. The kids were buckled into the vehicle. He freed them one by one. “I think I took out about five or six of them. They were head under water. It all went very quickly.” The childcare worker who drove the Stint helped but was also in shock.

Paramedics checked over the kids and childcare workers. Dias Santos informed the children’s parents. “My colleagues acted quickly,” he said. “It helps that the ditch was shallow.”

Oss

The Stint electric cargo bikes, explicitly made to transport children, became infamous in the Netherlands after a tragic accident in 2018. A childcare worker was taking kids to school when the vehicle got stuck on a railway crossing in Oss and got hit by a train. Four children died. The childcare worker and another child were seriously injured.

The Minister of Infrastructure took the Stint temporarily off the road while safety adjustments were made, including installing seatbelts. The authorities were never able to establish a definitive cause for the accident.