Around ten passengers on a burning Vitalis bus were saved thanks to the intervention of a 16-year-old on Friday, June 28, 2024, around 5 p.m., on Avenue Descartes, in Chasseneuil-du-Poitou.
“I got off at the university stop, just before the Institute of Advanced Studies in Education and Training (IH2F), says Abdellah, a high school student in Santiago de Compostela. Smoke was coming out of the engine then I saw flames. I ran towards the bus to alert the passengers and the driver. Everyone got down before the flames devoured everything. » Thanks to his intervention, no one was injured.
The flames devastated everything in a few minutes.
© (Photo from a witness)
“I grabbed the fire extinguisher but it was already too late”
Despite the massive intervention of around thirty firefighters with four vehicles (including the large ladder and a high-powered foam van), the 11-metre-long Vitalis Heuliez bus (Heuliez type, around 500,000 km) was completely destroyed by the fire. An hour later, only a charred carcass remained.
The road was blocked to traffic by the police. Marie-Agnès Przewozny, a driver for seven years at Vitalis, warmly thanked the young customer for his alert.
“I was getting ready to restart from the IH2F stop when an emergency stop light came on, but I saw neither smoke nor flames. Then the customers shouted “There’s fire!” ”I grabbed the fire extinguisher but it was already too late. »
