2016 coup bid: Turkish paramedics swamped by victims

By Omer Olcay

ANKARA (AA) – The night of the defeated 2016 coup in Turkey, ambulances were so overwhelmed that they had to carry two or three victims of the bloody putschists at a time, an ambulance driver remembered about that fateful night.

“There were many injured people in front of the General Staff. We carried them nonstop from around 10 p.m. [1800GMT] to 3.00 a.m. [0100GMT] to various hospitals in [the capital] Ankara,” Adem Tasdemir told Anadolu Agency.

Orchestrated by the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) and its U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gulen, the defeated July 15, 2016 coup left 251 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.

Turkey also accuses FETO of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary.

-Ambulances targeted by terrorists

Tasdemir said the ambulance that he was driving was targeted by the armed putschists, and he himself was injured.

“When I got out of the ambulance, my colleague said that my head was bleeding. The bullet grazed the upper left side of my head,” Tasdemir said.

“I didn’t see or hear the bullet.”

He stressed that there was blood everywhere during the night of the defeated coup, adding: “I thought that the blood coming from my head was from the injured people we were carrying.”

Four months ago, Tasdemir started to work in the martyrs and veterans branch of Altindag, a district of Ankara.

“Every martyr’s family I see reminds me what a great an honor it was to be martyred that night,” he said.

“That night the bullets were raining down on us, and we were hearing them, but we felt no fear or any need to escape.”

*Writing by Erdogan Cagatay Zontur