A “terrible shock” but they “are fine”. During the night from Saturday to Sunday, the forty students who were victims of a serious bus accident in Isère were able to find their families, domiciled in the Paris region. Transported by train, the children, aged 6 to 10, returned to Sceaux “safe and sound”, we learn from the Grenoble prosecutor’s office. 20 Minutes make the point.
What happened in Isère, on the Napoleon road?
According to France 3, the children and their companions were returning from a ski holiday in the resort of Saint-Michel-de-Chaillot (Hautes-Alpes). Forty-six people were on board the bus, six adults and 40 primary school students, when the vehicle “exited the road” on the RN85 – better known as the Napoleon road and renowned for its dangerousness – at height of the commune of Corps, indicates the prefecture of Isère. The accident occurred at 8:45 a.m.
The emergency services dispatched 90 firefighters and two Civil Security helicopters to rescue the injured and extricate them from the ravine in which they were stuck. Twenty gendarmes were also mobilized while the departmental military delegation was responsible for transporting the survivors to the Pupilles de l’air school. As for the injured, they were rushed to hospitals in Grenoble and La Mure.
Where is the investigation?
“In a bend, the driver continued straight and the bus fell in the woods to the torrent” located six meters below, said Saturday Eric Vaillant, public prosecutor of Grenoble who favors at this stage ” the trail of malaise”. “Luckily all the children were strapped in,” he added. “We were also very lucky that the bus did not go down. All of this is a small miracle”, estimated, for his part, the UDI mayor of Sceaux Philippe Laurent to the Parisian.
What is the balance sheet?
A first assessment, communicated by the authorities on Saturday morning, reported 12 injured in relative emergency and four in “absolute emergency”, namely two children as well as the driver and his companion, whose vital prognoses were at that time engaged. . Then, the toll was raised to twenty injured including 18 students but it was quickly clarified that the state of health of the four schoolchildren, “transported to hospital for observation” no longer caused concern. All of them came out at the beginning of the evening to find their comrades at the school of the pupils. “They are shocked but none suffers from serious injuries”, observes Eric Vaillant.
The driver and his wife also now seem out of the woods. “The injuries seem less serious than feared at the start”, underlines François Touret de Coucy, deputy prosecutor of Grenoble, specifying that the first had cracked ribs and the second, cracked vertebrae. “The driver’s discomfort seems confirmed by the fact that he was able to speak to the rescuers and told them that he was in pain,” he adds.
How did his children return to the Paris region?
The group had to be repatriated to the Paris region and a transport solution quickly found. The prefectures of Isère, Hauts-de-Seine, the town hall of Sceaux as well as the academies of Grenoble and Versailles have not been idle, alerting the government in order to solve the puzzle since the trains bound for Paris were complete. It was finally Clément Baune, the Minister of Transport himself, who found 40 places in one of the wagons leaving for the capital, reveals The Parisian.
The children were able to leave at 8 p.m. from Isère and find their parents three and a half hours later. In addition, psychological cells will be set up on Monday in the schools where the children attend.