On Saturday January 11, shortly before 4 p.m., two trams collided in a tunnel leading to the stop serving Strasbourg central station. Firefighters reportedaround fifty injuredall light, and a hundred people unharmed.
Nolan and Naël, two 16-year-old teenagers who live around thirty kilometers from Strasbourg, were passengers on one of the damaged trains. “As we left the tunnel, the tram stopped. The lights went out. We started going backwards faster and faster. At the back of the tram, we were saying to each other: ‘Why is the tram suddenly reversing like that?’“, Nolan told RTL.
An investigation into the charge of unintentional injuries was opened by the prosecution aimed at “determining the causes of the accident and highlighting possible criminal responsibilities”. “We don’t know why – human error, material problem, all that has to be verified – (the tram) did not manage to stay stuck (at a stop) and therefore started to move backwards,” said detailed the president of the Compagnie des transports strasbourgeois (CTS), Patrick Maciejewski.
“We were really lucky”
A few seconds before the impact, the two friends protected themselves as best they could. “I held on to the bar and the first carriage completely dislocated from the rest of the tram. During the shock, I closed my eyes“, confided Nolan.
The boy saw “sparks on the power lines”, “broken doors”, “broken windows”, “blood on the floor”. “There was really a lot of smoke, the alarm was ringing really loud, everyone was panicking,” added Naël. The latter saw “several people injured”, including “a lady with a piece of glass” stuck “right in the forehead” and “blood all over my face”. And continued: “It was at that moment that I really realized that something quite serious had happened.”
Amidst chaos and shattered windowsit was necessary to evacuate. “I quickly came to my senses. I saw someone walk over a seat. I tried to lift a door with other people,” Nolan said.
Once outside, the two friends, unharmed, made themselves known to the rescuers. Naël briefly “thought about the Strasbourg attacks (five deaths in December 2018). We didn’t say that it was that, but in doubt… We tried to distance ourselves as much as possible”. According to him, “we were really lucky. I just had a few scratches. Within a few centimeters, I could have lost an eye or had something much more serious“. “Shocked by the situation”, the teenager will not take the tram again “right away”.
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