The regional prosecutor’s office in Ruse has discontinued the criminal proceedings regarding the death of the 11-year-old boy who was struck by lightning during a training session at the “Danube” Sports Complex in the Danube city in the summer of 2023. The decision was made on December 20, 2024, by supervising prosecutor Radoslav Gradev, as indicated on the prosecutor’s website.
“For the Truth” attempted to obtain a copy of the ruling for the termination of the proceedings under the Access to Public Information Act (APIA) to understand the reasons behind it. However, the regional prosecutor’s office in Ruse refused, explaining that only the supervising prosecutor could authorize such disclosure.
The Story of an Absurd Death Due to Negligence
On one of the last days of August 2023, a sudden thunderstorm swept over Ruse. At the same time, a regular training session was taking place for a youth football club at one of the sports complexes in the city. As the children ran to a shelter to hide, lightning struck two of them. One of them died.
The field where the incident occurred is municipal property but has been managed under a concession by the company “RDS Invest” EAD since 2018. The manager of the company, Simeon Simeon – nicknamed “The Doctor” – initially claimed that the site was equipped with two lightning rods on the day of the tragic incident. It later turned out that this was not true.
Investigations conducted by the relevant authorities at the site of the incident established that on the fateful day of August 30, there were no operational lightning rods on the territory of the “Danube” Sports Complex. At the same time, according to experts interviewed by “For the Truth,” the installation of lightning protection with a defined radius of action is mandatory for any such infrastructure project.
A joint inspection by the Municipality of Ruse, the Regional Directorate for National Construction Control (RDNCK), external experts, and representatives of the concessionaire company identified several safety shortcomings at the site. One of these was that a lightning protection receiver with proactive action, as stipulated in the approved investment project, had not been installed on the changing rooms.
Following the incident, the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Ruse issued a statement to the media that an investigation would be conducted to determine whether a crime had been committed under Article 123 of the Penal Code for causing death through negligence or unintentional actions. The law prescribes a punishment of imprisonment from one to six years for such an offense.
Half a year later, upon the proposal of the mayor of Ruse Municipality, city councilors voted to allocate 58,000 BGN for the construction of lightning protection on six sports fields managed by the municipal enterprise “Sport Properties.” Following an inquiry from “For the Truth,” it became clear that lightning protection is also being implemented at the “Danube” Sports Complex, but this will be at the cost of the concessionaire. This raised the question, which still lacks an answer, of why such measures had not been taken earlier and why action is only being taken months after the child’s death.
“A project has been submitted to the municipality for the construction of comprehensive lightning protection over the entire complex,” said Simeon Simeonov, manager of “RDS Invest” EAD, the concessionaire for the “Danube” Sports Complex since 2018. “This is normal in relation to the tragedy that has befallen us. As far as I know, a construction permit has already been granted, and next week, the company that will be building it is expected to come in and carry out the work,” Simeonov added at that time.
Alongside the vote for the budget adjustment to allocate funds for the construction of lightning protection, it was revealed that the municipality had been aware of this problem since at least 2021. This was understood from internal communications between the municipality and representatives of the municipal enterprise “Sport Properties,” which Za Istinata (“For the Truth”) obtained and published.
Despite all the evidence of the missing lightning protection, there are no culpable parties and no one has been punished for the death of 11-year-old Ventsi, who tragically died while training for football.
