Guest of the Super Moscato Show, this Tuesday on RMC, Marc Lièvremont returned to the paragliding accident which almost cost him his life on Monday in Reunion. The former player and coach of the XV of France remained for almost three hours hanging on a branch above the void, before being rescued by gendarmes.
In a few moments he went from the pleasure of soaring in the sky to the fear of dying. Marc Lièvremont came close to the worst during an outing with friends on Monday in Reunion. The former player and coach was the victim of an accident while paragliding in the Saint-Joseph valley, in the south of the Indian Ocean island. After falling, the former player and coach of the XV of France, aged 56, found himself stranded on a rock wall covered with vegetation at the Rivière des Remparts. He remained for almost three hours clinging to the branch of a tree, with almost 500m of emptiness below him.
“I was flying with friends from the Pyrenees, with whom I learned to fly. We were above Saint-Jospeh and the idea was to fly above a wall, to take thermal currents “, confided Marc Lièvremont this Tuesday in the Super Moscato Show on RMC. “I don't feel proud of myself because most certainly I was too close to the wall and I swung with my paraglider right in the middle of a rampart, a cliff, which must be a thousand meters high. There was 500m below and 500m above. It's like a green wall. I saw myself getting closer to the wall, I said to myself: 'I have the right to it'. I tumbled down the cliff I found myself clinging to the vegetation by the suspensions of my paraglider, to a branch three centimeters in diameter which was holding me by the harness. By some miracle there was a tree. ten meters that had grown along the wall. I was at the top of the tree and so I spent three hours like that in the void.
“I feel very stupid, I blame myself…”
Alerted by his situation, soldiers from the high mountain gendarmerie platoon (PGHM) of Reunion came to help him. And they had to take great precautions to get him out of trouble, as one of the gendarmes present told RMC Sport.
“I was extraordinarily lucky to come across rescuers from the PGHM. I was happy to see them arrive,” says Marc Lièvremont. “They couldn't airlift me so they sent a sort of commando of rescuers who abseiled about 50m above me into the cliff. The guys took risks. I feel very stupid when I tell this story story. I blame myself. I'm quite angry at having taken a risk, certainly I had extraordinary luck and I came across some great guys. I abseiled about thirty meters. with them. We then reached a slightly clear overhang which allowed us to be airlifted. The adventure ended well but I didn't come very close to worse.”
“I love thrills but I love life too”
Before his accident, the former player of Perpignan, Stade Français and Biarritz was already introduced to paragliding: “I had made around fifty flights. We were in a world that I knew. I had a little bit of experience, but these are still risky practices I certainly must have done something stupid. I was really lucky not to crash when I hit the wall, to arrive. miraculously hanging on… And then, also the chance to be very well accompanied, to have guys who immediately notified the emergency services, to have been located and put in contact with the helicopter via my phone J. “I had managed to free it and I had it with me, they were able to give me the procedure… These are several miracles that have meant that I am alive today.”
After such a fright, Marc Lièvremont has no plans to return to gliding through the air: “There's no way I'm going to fly again. I have the feeling of having played my joker, of having endangered the life of other people and embarrassed my friend who was responsible for me. I can't thank the police enough, but above all, I didn't want it to be known. My children really yelled at me. strong but I love life too…”
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