It is around 3 p.m. on Saturday when Hervé Sievert, a young fifty-year-old, father of two children, boards the tram at the Ducs d'Alsace station, in the Cronenbourg district where he lives. “On the way, the driver takes the microphone and tells us that, following a demonstration in the city center, our terminus will be at the Les Halles stop. » Nothing unusual for this occasional tram user. “We cross the Gare station in the classic way and then we arrive towards Les Halles, at the exit of the tunnel. There, the driver takes the microphone again and tells us that, following a technical problem, the train is immobilized and that we will have to wait a few moments. She tells us to please be patient. »
“Like a thrill ride”
What the passengers do and this wait is, in Hervé's memory, rather short before the tram starts moving again. But instead of finishing its trajectory and dropping off customers at Les Halles, a few meters away, the vehicle goes back. “At some point, the terrible happens. We have this awful feeling, like being on a thrill ride. Reason calms me down, I tell myself that it's a simple maneuver, that the tram is moving backwards a little, that it's normal. But a few meters pass and we feel pulled backwards, we really have the feeling that the tram is accelerating. » In the tunnel between Halles and the station, the passengers are “deprived of any reference point” and are not really aware of the speed at which their train is moving backwards. “But we were going really fast. And just when we really start to feel this speed, we realize that there is no longer any light in the tram, there are no more ceiling lights! »
The sequence is undoubtedly very short, but that does not prevent the brains from phosphorous. “I think there were several things mixed up in everyone’s heads. A double system of thought, based on one side on confidence in this technological tool that is the Strasbourg tram and on the other on the awareness that there is a problem. We say to ourselves that there must be a way to block the vehicle remotely, that there must be a security system, that we will necessarily be taken back to the station…”
“Just a yellow halo from which smoke seems to be escaping”
Then comes the shock, which Hervé can't really put into words. He still speaks of “very high” speed, then of people panicking, getting up, getting angry. He remembers angry cries, “injunctions” addressed to the CTS. Phones held up to film the scene, which in reality will hardly capture readable images and, sometimes, aggravate certain injuries. “The person next to me took their neighbor’s phone. » For Hervé, the collision is “a physical percussion” against a background of “howls, screeching, gushing and odors”, “all at the same time”. “We open our eyes, there is no light, just a yellow halo from which smoke seems to be escaping which is coming towards us. We don’t know where we are…” Terror grips the passengers, many of whom are injured. Disoriented, many believe they are still trapped in the tunnel. For them, attempting to leave may mean exposing themselves to toxic fumes, or to the dangerous passage of another tram. What if it was an attack? The hypothesis fleetingly crosses Hervé's thoughts.
-“There was real solidarity”
He manages to stay standing and immediately has to take care of the injured people. “There was an elderly lady lying on the ground, moaning and bleeding. She had blood on her face. There was a young girl standing there, half of her face covered in blood. It was an anxious and terrifying atmosphere. I helped the lady into a sitting position, told her not to move. » Under the violence of the shock, the doors at the front of the train were blown off. This is where the passengers “wisely” exit: “The able-bodied people did not leave abandoning the others, there was real solidarity. People did not rush into the opening like on the first day of the sales. »
On the platform, emergency services are already present. The injured are taken care of. The able-bodied have only one desire: to return to the open air, to breathe hard, to let the numerous emergency services carry out their task. This is what Hervé does. Since then, he has been thinking and asking himself a lot of questions. If an alarm had sounded, if someone had yelled “lie down!” “, perhaps the passengers would have had the reflex to put themselves in a “protective” position, to crouch, to lie down. “There would have been no problem then,” thinks Hervé.
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