Two brothers between life and death after a spectacular quad accident on a local road

In the night that has just fallen, on this Friday the 1st^is November 2024, the lights of the flashing lights of the gendarmerie and firefighters tear through the darkness of departmental road 813 in the town of Grisolles, in Tarn-et-Garonne. Otherwise called the Agen road, it was the scene of an accident as spectacular as it was rare, shortly after 6 p.m., not far from the former famous Big Ben nightclub.

On this road, an escape lane allows motorists who wish to reach rue des Peupliers, where the commune's emergency center is based, to leave the field open to drivers who wish to continue their route towards Dieupentale. It was on this road that the first car stopped and saw headlights approaching in the distance.

Two brothers from Pompignan

A second car, coming from rue des Peupliers, stopped a little behind the Stop sign, wishing to turn left to take the RD 813. Because it too saw that lights were heading towards it.

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Coming from Dieupentale and towards the roundabout which makes the link with the RD 820, two men aged 39 and 37 are traveling on their respective quads. Both means of transport are approved. The two thirty-year-olds, who live in Pompignan, have, according to initial findings, all their security elements. They are traveling side by side at the start of the evening.

The two quads drive side by side

Unfortunately, the driver of the vehicle on the left on the road bites into the middle of the road. He is unable to avoid the car momentarily parked on the escape lane. He hits her lightly. The impact knocks it off course.

This is when the first quad will hit the second, to its right. Carried away by his momentum, the first driver lost control of his machine, he was ejected from his control post and was thrown several meters into the field along the road. The second driver of the quad will experience another very strange fate.

He will hit head-on the traffic sign located on the central reservation of rue des Peupliers. There he stops dead. The machine will even partly crush its owner.

The two men transported to Purpan

When the firefighters arrived on the scene, they were confronted by two men who were in serious danger. One, in the field, cannot express himself. The other, on the central reservation, would have whispered a few words. Both are polytraumatized. A helicopter from the Haute-Garonne Samu is mobilized. It lands on the Grisolles municipal stadium.

But the decision was finally made to transport the two victims most severely affected by the road and medically treated to the Toulouse-Purpan hospital center. They left the scene around 8:30 p.m.

Darkness, danger

In both cars there are three others involved. In a first vehicle, two women aged 49 and 16. They were slightly injured. A 75-year-old man who occupied the last car was unhurt. Decision was made by the firefighters, after verification, to leave the trio on site.

During the intervention, traffic on this busy axis, which connects via the departmental Toulouse to Castelsarrasin then Agen, was cut off by the gendarmerie at the D820/D813 roundabout on one side, at Dieupentale de l 'other side. The military obviously opened an investigation to determine precisely the responsibilities of each person involved in the accident.

A few days after the time change, which took place between October 26 and 27, local authorities hammered out prevention messages, reminding people that darkness is an immediate danger for motorists and an accident-causing factor. The prefecture had also announced a strengthening of controls. This Friday, November 1st in the evening, the sun set around 5:45 p.m. That's a full quarter of an hour before this big accident.