Two teenage boys aged 15 and 16 crashed into the Brussels-Scheldt canal in Willebroek (between Brussels and Antwerp) during a police chase. The boys were able to climb out of the car and swim to safety and are uninjured.
The grey Fiat caught the attention of the police on patrol around midnight from Tuesday to Wednesday. The police noticed that the driver was showing inappropriate driving behaviour when they tried to pull the car over. The driver then fled and the police gave chase.
The driver lost control of the vehicle at the intersection of Steenweg and Hoeikensstraat at high speed. He hit two concrete blocks and plunged into the canal. Once they swam to safety and after a medical check-up, the two were arrested and taken to the police station for questioning. The car has since been pulled from the water by the fire brigade.
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A fire officer who attended the scene said that the two boys are very lucky as the impact from hitting the two concrete blocks could have been fatal. It has since been ascertained that the boys are from Willebroek and the car belonged to one of their families. The car is not salvageable and is headed to the scrap yard.
It is likely that the driver fled from the police because he did not have a driver's license due to being below the legal driving age, which in Belgiu is 18.
