The fall of a tree in the yard of a school in Bessens in the Tarn-et-Garonne caused two serious injuries Thursday, two young children of the school in a state of "absolute urgency". They remained two hours trapped under the weight of the branches and the trunk of this hundred year old horse chestnut before being rescued and taken to the hospital of Purpan in Toulouse, conscious but in a serious state. One suffers from injuries to the chest, the other to the legs.
Like a hundred other children, Emmanuelle's son was present in the schoolyard at the time of the tragedy. "They heard a huge crack and the tree went to bed, unfortunately on my son's boyfriends," reports this mother to Europe 1. "He told me that as soon as they heard the noise they started running ... He told me that the tree had stopped in front of him, he saw his two comrades under this tree, we are quite shocked as a parent, the children too. made us think of that. " The wind that blew that day could be at the origin of the tragedy.
"My daughter said to me, 'I saw the tree fall, we saw the roots rise'"
Safe children were immediately confined while firefighters attempted to lift the trunk four to five tons, with air bags or by cutting parts of the tree. A 3-year-old girl was able to get out of the foliage quickly and gets away with minor injuries. "My daughter said to me, 'I saw the tree fall, we saw the roots rise up.' When she saw it, she shifted and ran, the leaves touching her face. very close to the tree, "reports another mother, still in Europe.
"The screams, the images, the things like the legs of the children stuck under the trees, that's what especially shocked," she continues. A psychological cell was set up at the town hall to allow children to put words on what they saw. "We'll have to land all of us, we're still shaking, we can not imagine something like that happening in a schoolyard, for us, this tree is the chestnuts that we found in the binder in September, "said the mother again, throat knotted. Friday, the day before the holidays, the school will remain closed. An investigation, led by the gendarmerie of Tarn-et-Garonne, was opened.