Baby killed, 17 injured as car drives into Rio crowd

A speeding car ploughed through evening strollers on a crowded promenade at Copacabana beach in Rio in an apparent accident, killing an eight-month-old baby and injuring 17 people, police said.
Injured people lay on the pavement, recalling recent terrorist attacks by vehicles mowing down pedestrians, but there was no indication that the Copacabana incident was deliberate.
An Australian man, one of 17 people injured, was in a serious condition yesterday, health officials said.
The 68-year-old Australian was among 10 people still in hospital yesterday, most suffering multiple fractures after the accident, a statement from the Rio de Janeiro health secretariat said.
The G1 news website reported that the driver, who fled the scene but was quickly arrested by police, had said he had had an epileptic fit, and medicine for epilepsy was found in the car.
Copacabana police confirmed the baby’s death and said 15 injured people were being treated in hospital.
“How is it that he’s taking epilepsy medicine and is driving a car,” the baby’s 27-year-old father Darlan Rocha asked in an interview with Brazil’s Globo TV.
“He’s a killer. He shouldn’t have a driver’s licence,” he said. “I was working at the time, my wife was walking with my daughter on the beach in the stroller, so he came running over everybody.”
Dramatic images from the scene on television showed a black car with its windscreen smashed on the beach. Others showed emergency service teams carrying patients on stretchers as shocked witnesses looked on.
Witnesses said on the Globo News network that the car had driven over a cycle path and across the promenade, hitting people and crashing through tables and chairs, before stopping on the sand of the beach. The smashed widescreen and dented roof indicated the force with which the vehicle had hit people.
The promenade at Copacabana is a favourite summer evening walk for Rio residents and tourists who have started to arrive for carnival celebrations next month.
One victim, who suffered minor injuries, told O Globo newspaper: “He came at a very high speed before he lost control. Thank God I did not lose my senses. It was a terrible scene. The car caught everyone on the sidewalk.”