MILAN: A driver with a history of mental health problems ran over a number of people in the northern Italian city of Modena on Saturday, injuring eight people, four of them seriously, authorities said.
Security camera footage broadcast by Italian media showed a car being driven at high speed into a city centre street packed with pedestrians and cyclists.
The driver, an Italian of Moroccan heritage, hit several people before crashing into a shop window, colliding head-on with a woman, city prefect Fabrizia Triolo told a news conference.
He tried to flee the scene but was chased and cornered by four passers-by, then pulled a knife and injured one of them.
Eight people, including a German and a Pole, have been taken to hospital, four of them in a serious condition, the prefect said. One of the injured has had to have both legs amputated.
The driver, an economics graduate born in 1995 was not known to the police, but went through a spell of "psychological disturbance" in 2022, the prefect said.
"He had been treated at a mental health centre for schizoid disorders, but we lost track of him after that initial period of observation in a care facility," she added.
According to the prefect, the driver was not under the influence of "psychotropic substances".
His home near Modena has been searched.
