Fatal accident at Escher-Wyss-Platz: Now the mother speaks

“It’s hard to describe. It was traumatic. I was at a doctor’s appointment and received a call that Tony had had a serious accident. I remember screaming immediately. I felt that something bad had happened and ran to the scene of the accident,” Susanne Schmetkamp, ​​the mother of the injured Tony, recalls December 21, 2022.

She was beside herself and just screamed for “probably an hour and a half,” Schmetkamp said in an interview with Barbara Bleisch in the SRF program “Sternstunde der Nacht,” which was about death, grief and life.

A psychologist tried to talk to her at the scene of the accident, but she couldn’t stand it, Schmetkamp explains. “Friends and neighbors, my partner, were more helpful. And a police officer who just held me and didn’t try to calm me down – that got through to me more than words.”

Presenter Barbara Bleisch asks the mother whether she often thinks back to that day. She says that she does so very often. “But the memory often comes back to me, especially in the morning or on the road when I’m driving in traffic. The images haunt me and I find it hard to shake them off.”

Susanne Schmetkamp lost a son around eleven years ago. He died in hospital during birth; the umbilical cord had broken. “That was also completely unexpected, but we were able to accompany him to his death in a safe environment in the children’s hospital – despite all the horror, we had magical moments with him, full of love, peace and gratitude,” says Schmetkamp.

Schmetkamp, ​​who is a philosopher, has given birth to a total of five children. Two of them have died. Moderator Bleisch asks whether she would still say that she is the mother of five children. “Yes, of course. We remain children of our parents, even if they have died. Whether I always say it like that depends on the situation and who I am talking to – sometimes you have to protect yourself, sometimes others.”

At her son’s memorial service, Schmetkamp gave an impressive and touching speech. Barbara Bleisch asks where she got the strength for this emotional speech. “It came from my sense of responsibility and deep love for my son. I wanted to create a lively, colorful picture of him with and for him and for everyone present,” explains Schmetkamp in the emotional interview.

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