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Russian cosmonaut runs over colleague after space return

In this image distributed by Roscosmos State Space Corporation, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev sits in the chair shortly after the landing of the Russian Soyuz MS-21 space capsule southeast of the Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022. Three Russian cosmonauts returned safely from a mission to the International Space Station. The Soyuz MS-21 spacecraft carrying Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveyev and Sergey Korsakov touched down softly at 4:57 p.m. (1057 GMT) Thursday at a designated site in the steppes of Kazakstan about 150 kilometers (about 90 miles) southeast of the city of Zhezkazgan. (Pavel Kassin, Roscosmos State Space Corporation via AP) (Pavel Kassin, Roscosmos State Space Corporation)

MOSCOW – After three missions in space, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev ran into difficulty on Earth when he drove over a colleague on a dark road outside Moscow less than three weeks after returning from his latest orbiting mission.

Russia's state space corporation Roscosmos said Artemyev didn't see an employee of the Star City cosmonaut training center who was crossing the road in the dark late Monday.

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It said in a statement Tuesday that Artemyev immediately provided first aid assistance to the victim, Anatoly Uronov, who was hospitalized with several fractures. Roscosmos emphasized that Artemyev was sober and immediately called police and an ambulance.

On Sept. 29, the 51-year-old Artemyev returned from his third mission to the International Space Station, which brought his total time spent in orbit to 561 days.