Doutzi Gutstein, the sole survivor of a train disaster that killed seven members of one family 16 years ago, gave an emotional interview on Kikar FM with Eli Guthelff. He said the crash, which happened on a family trip to a Sabbath gathering in Kdumim, turned his life upside down at age 23 and left him facing a new reality without his wife or young son.
Gutstein said that before the trip, his father-in-law told him to sit in the front of the family pickup truck instead of the back, a decision he now sees as the difference between life and death. At the level crossing near Kiryat Gat, the driver failed to notice the closing barrier and warning lights, drove onto the tracks, and the vehicle stalled. As he and the driver tried to restart it, a train struck, tearing off the back of the truck. Gutstein said he slept through the impact and woke later in Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon with severe injuries, including fractures to his eye socket, nose and jaw, along with tears to his liver and spleen and serious damage to blood vessels and muscles.
He said that on the third day, Rabbi Hanania Cholek of Ezer Mizion told him, in stages, that his in-laws, wife Meli, who was eight months pregnant, and his two-year-old son Moti had all been killed. Gutstein described that as a complete personal collapse, but said he chose faith over anger. “Father is not blamed,” he said, adding that God sometimes gives “a slap on one cheek” and “a caress on the other.” He remained in hospital only two weeks before being discharged for about a year of rehabilitation, after doctors were surprised to see his body healing without surgery.
During the interview, Guthelff realized the recording date was H’ BeTammuz, which means his late son Moti was marking what would have been his 18th birthday, and also the yahrzeit of Gutstein’s grandfather. Gutstein now has a new family with his wife Rina, four children, and says she fully accepts his past, including an accidental slip when he once called her by his first wife’s name. He also said he feels no anger toward the driver, whom he sees as a divine messenger, and ended by asking his son in heaven to pray for redemption, health and peace for the family.
