Officer injured in clash with hooligans remains in critical condition
A 31-year-old police officer injured with a naval flare during a confrontation with volleyball hooligans on Thursday night remains in critical condition, the Nikaia General State Hospital where he is being treated said on Saturday.
According to the update, he remains is in a medically induced coma in the ICU and is being “hemodynamically supported with gradually decreasing doses of vasoconstrictor drugs.”
The hospital also said his thigh wound has a tendency to bleed which is “adequately controlled with local hemostatics and that he has a thermal skin burn on the thigh and around the wound.
The police officer has already undergone two surgeries on his leg since his injury.
The incident happened during a volleyball match between crosstown rivals Olympiakos and Panathinaikos. The match started at 9 p.m. and the officer’s injury occurred at the end of the first set when a group of about 100 people came out of the stadium and attacked the riot police with Molotov cocktails and naval flares. They then returned to the stadium and mingled with other fans. When the police confined them inside the stadium after the officer was injured, they allegedly tried to set fire to the toilets to force the police to open the stadium doors for security reasons, allowing them to escape.
There were no security cameras inside the stadium that would help investigators gather information while footage from a camera outside the stadium did not provide any data.
The latest incident occurred just four months after the clashes between soccer hooligans outside the AEK Athens stadium on the eve of a European qualifier against Dinamo Zagreb, which cost the life of 29-year-old Michalis Katsouris.
