Ariège. A teenager falls 8 meters while doing urbex in an abandoned site in Lavelanet

It is a scenario worthy of a fiction which marked the population on November 20: the Ariège emergency services came to the aid, around 3 p.m., of a 17-year-old teenager, who fell eight meters while exploring an industrial wasteland in Lavelanet. The intervention required the intervention of a team specialized in rescue and clearance to facilitate access to the victim.

Thus, the firefighters intervened quickly to rescue the student from the Joseph-Marie Jacquard high school, although having to tear off a metal plate to reach the young man who had fallen inside an industrial site in Lavelanet. An accident which occurred while the teenager was practicing a discipline particularly popular among young people: urbex. Seriously injured, the victim, treated by the SMUR team, was transported to the emergency room of Purpan University Hospital in serious condition. A firefighter was also slightly injured during the intervention. The gendarmerie opened an investigation to clarify the circumstances.

Urbex, a popular discipline which has already claimed victims

Urban exploration, abbreviated as urbex (from the English urban exploration), is a practice consisting of visiting places built and abandoned by man or inaccessible to the public. Very popular, this discipline has already claimed several victims last April and May in Cambrai (North) where a teenager died while practicing urbex in an abandoned factory, and in the Loire where a young girl also lost her life by practicing Urbex in an old factory between Unieux and Fraisses.

“Urbex Occitanie”: a work that puts the spotlight on three sites in Ariège

Guillaume Daudin, this 23-year-old from Ariège, passionate about urban exploration and photography, has listed in a book 24 mysteriously abandoned places in Occitania, including 3 emblematic ones in Ariège: the Domaine des Soulades, in Pla, a former abandoned tourist residence , a mansion, in Lavelanet, near the town hall, and an abandoned place in Prat-Bonrepaux. His book entitled “Urbex Occitanie”.