Witnesses have described the horrifying moment a 73-year-old man was crushed to death in a tragic car wash accident.

According to reports, Athanasios Papageorgiou from Melbourne, Australia, died in the hospital after the incident on November 25, 2019.

Two years after the accident, Chevron Australia Downstream Fuels Pty Ltd, which runs the car wash, was charged by WorkSafe Victoria over four negligence charges after Papageorgiou drove into the automatic car wash but he had to go out of his car to re-enter an access code as the car wash did not start.

When Papageorgiou tried to go back into his car, the wash cycle already started and his car door got stuck by a gantry.

Court documents revealed how the grandfather was left ‘screaming and unable to move.’

Pietrina Di Noto was behind him and saw the incident unfold.

She told the court that the 73-year-old’s fate was sealed when he tried to go back into his vehicle after the car wash started.

“He saw the machine move and started to run,” she said, adding that she saw water flowing from the car wash as the elderly man desperately tried to go back to the front seat.

“I thought, ‘Oh no, please get into the back seat,’” she expressed.

Ms Di Noto said it would have better if the man had just walked out. “It was obviously dangerous to get in the front,” she continued. “I was shocked.”

Chevron reportedly said in a statement: “Safety is Chevron’s top priority, and although the incident occurred before Chevron took up retail operations in Australia, Chevron has been and will continue to co-operate fully with any investigations into the incident.”

The documents read in court claim that Chevron did not take any steps to eliminate the risks.

“It was reasonably practicable for Chevron to eliminate or reduce the risk by installing boom gates which would grant access to the wash bay only after a valid access code was entered,” court documents allege.

The hearing is still going on.

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