Thursday, May 5, 2022 at 5:24 PM• Shane Jebbink • Last update: 17:30

Rick van Drongelen has been released from the hospital. The centre-back has not suffered any serious injuries from a serious accident that took place on Wednesday morning. The investigation set up by the police has shown that Van Drongelen was not to blame for the accident, a spokesperson for 1. FC Union Berlin, the employer of the Dutchman who has been leased to KV Mechelen this season, reports.

Van Drongelen returned home without serious physical injury, but was very shaken by the accident. “He is very sad, but we try to cheer him up. Although you also have to allow sadness,” a spokesperson for Union Berlin said at the press conference in the run-up to the meeting with SC Freiburg. The accident took place on the N258 near Axel, the birthplace of Van Drongelen.

The accident happened around 7:45 a.m., after which the road was closed in both directions. An eighteen-year-old man from Hulst, the driver of the other vehicle, did not survive the crash with the 23-year-old defender of KV Mechelen. According to the Union spokesperson, the Dutch police concluded that the blame for the investigation lay outside of Van Drongelen. It is currently unclear what exactly happened.

Van Drongelen broke through at the age of sixteen at Sparta Rotterdam in 2015 and immediately caught the attention of foreign clubs. In the summer of 2017, the defender made a top transfer to Hamburger SV, which transferred three million euros. Van Drongelen relegated in his first season with HSV from the Bundesliga and then played two years at the second level of Germany. Last summer he made the switch to Union Berlin, where he did not earn a permanent place in the match selection. In January he was therefore rented out to Mechelen, for which he has now played ten times.