Survivor tells "I was lying among burning people" - then "a guardian angel" rushes to Laëtitia's (17) aid

After the tragedy in Crans-Montana VS, eyewitnesses report chaotic scenes. Residents describe explosions, screams and people fleeing the building in panic.

In Crans-Montana VS, people remain stunned after the tragedy at the "Le Constellation" bar. Residents reported dramatic scenes during the night as people fled screaming from the building onto the street.

In a special report on RTS TV, local resident and eyewitness Jeoffroy D'Amecourt described how he was woken up in the middle of the night. The trigger was an explosion, which for him was clearly distinguishable from the noise of fireworks.

"It was a detonation that didn't sound like fireworks," said D'Amecourt. "Then people ran out of the bar. The building and the neighboring house were completely destroyed. The emergency services arrived shortly afterwards."

Several residents unanimously reported that people had fled the bar, some of them in panic and shouting. There were injured people in the street, who were initially cared for by other guests and residents until the emergency services arrived.

"Half of my clothes were burnt"

Survivors also describe dramatic scenes from the night of the fire.

An underage survivor describes the dramatic minutes in the bar. Laëtitia, 17 years old, said she had only been in the basement bar for a short time when the situation escalated. "About a minute before the fire broke out, I suddenly heard 'fire, fire'," she said in an interview with French television station BFMTV.

Then panic broke out. "We started running. The fire spread very, very quickly and the smoke burned our eyes. We couldn't breathe," said the teenager. She also felt an explosion near the ground. "I felt it on my legs," said Laëtitia. People in the crowd were pushing and shoving, "all like crazy".

She describes the scenes on the floor particularly vividly. "I was among three or four people on fire, surrounded by dead people," she said. She raised her hands and screamed until a young man she didn't know pulled her out of the situation. "Thanks to him, I was able to escape, he is a guardian angel," said Laëtitia.

According to the 17-year-old, she was out with ten friends. "But only two of us made it home," she said. Around six people from her immediate circle of friends are currently missing, and acquaintances have also lost their lives. "People were being resuscitated around us, people were lying on the ground, we didn't know if they were dead," she said. "They were terrible images."

"Nightmare that I still have to wake up from"

19-year-old Nathan Huguenin was in the bar to celebrate the new year, he told the AP news agency. A day later, he told the media that he was still in shock. "It feels like a nightmare that I'm about to wake up from," the young man said.

He had hardly slept since the accident. "I couldn't close my eyes. Everything kept coming back because I saw people being resuscitated. I saw people who were badly burned. I saw people dying," said Huguenin.

"Le Constellation"The catastrophe occurred in this bar

Axel Clavier, who was also in the bar, also reported a life-threatening situation. He was inside the bar when the fire broke out. "We were trapped. A lot of people were trapped," said Clavier.

Dense smoke made it almost impossible to find your way around. "We couldn't see anything. We didn't know how to get out," said the young man. In the end, he looked for a way out on his own and broke a window to get outside. "Half of my clothes were burnt. It was completely surreal," said Clavier.

A video published by RTS shows people lying on the street in front of the scene of the accident and being treated by rescue workers and civilians. For reasons of piety, blue News has decided not to publish this footage.

"Flashover" phenomenon explainedWhy the fire in the bar escalated so quickly