• A stampede with ponies left 17 injured, including many children, on July 19 in Saint-M'Hervé, Ille-et-Vilaine.

  • According to the first investigations, the supervision rate was insufficient to take care of the 25 children of this summer camp.

  • Two girls are still in hospital after being trampled by the fleeing ponies.

The public prosecutor of Rennes evokes "a first analysis" of the accident which injured 15 children and two supervisors on Tuesday July 19 in Saint-M'Hervé, near Vitré (Ille-et-Vilaine).

A first analysis which is not tender.

Two days after the stampede with ponies during a summer camp, the first elements of the investigation plead for "insufficient supervision" at the time of the accident according to prosecutor Philippe Astruc.

The magistrate insists on the fact that this analysis “will have to be deepened”.

But he is already pointing out certain responsibilities.

According to the investigations carried out by the research brigade of the Vitré gendarmerie, the group of 25 children was supervised by two facilitators.

One, aged 22, holds the BAFA.

The other, born in 2004, is still only a trainee.

According to French law, the supervision rate for children over the age of 6 must be one facilitator for twelve children.

“Furthermore, the accident appears to be partly caused by the dual nature of the activity consisting both in the supervision of the group of children and in the transit of a large group of animals without methods allowing to ensure their possible control,” explains the prosecutor.

The horses are neither ridden nor kept on a lead

The accident occurred on Tuesday evening when about fifteen children and two supervisors accompanied the double ponies from the paddock to a meadow located a hundred meters away.

The path is “relatively narrow and bordered by fences”.

As for the horses, they are “neither ridden nor kept on a lead”.

They are used to taking this route.

According to the witnesses, the lead animal "suddenly turned around when it was at the entrance to the meadow, the other horses immediately following it".

It was there that 15 children were injured, three of them seriously.

On Wednesday evening, an 11-year-old girl was still hospitalized in pediatric surgery.

Another 8-year-old child with head fractures is in pediatric intensive care.

“All the other victims were able to leave the hospital”, specifies the parquet floor.

For the time being, the manager of the Haute Hairie equestrian center could not be heard.

His establishment had been the subject of several visits by the services of Youth and Sport.

All the administrative checks had ended positively.

“The investigations will continue in the coming days in order to determine possible criminal responsibilities”, concludes the prosecutor.

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Ille-et-Vilaine: What happened in the accident at the equestrian center where 15 children were injured by ponies?

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