Following the accident with the Cime Caron cable car which left several injured, a press conference was held at the Val Thorens tourist office, in the presence of Jérôme Grellet, director of SETAM, Claude Jay, mayor des Belleville and Benjamin Blanc, director of the Belleville slopes service. It was reminded that the accident will have no impact on the opening of the ski lifts on Saturday. The Cime Caron cable car was to enter service several weeks after the opening of the station. Each year, the latter is tested and subject to inspection by a delegated state body.
For now, the matter is in the hands of the courts. The causes of the accident are not known. “What we think is that it is not a problem linked to the control, nor to the device,” indicated Jérôme Grellet. We are awaiting a report from the Land Transport Accident Investigation Bureau (BEA-TT) and the Technical Service for Ski Lifts and Guided Transport (STRMTG) to find out more.” The cable car was in construction mode, to allow the transport of materials This mode is not used during the operating period. During the winter, the mode used is automatic, without a pilot. The pilot in charge of the climb on Tuesday, November 19 is “the most experienced. that we have. He is in a state of shock and psychological monitoring has been put in place,” continued the director of SETAM.
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How the rescue work takes place
According to Benjamin Blanc, the director of the Belleville slopes service, the alert was given at 7:31 a.m.: “We must underline the chain of solidarity of all the mountain rescue services which were contacted very quickly. Our operational reflexes were strategic in responding to this accident. All services quickly understood the seriousness of the accident. In a very short time, the injured were cared for firstly by doctors from the Val Thorens station, then by the station's first aid trackers. All of this is then coordinated by the firefighters, state services, the CRS Alpes and the PGHM. The two seriously injured were medically treated on site and the 6 slightly injured transported to a site next to the Caron peak. The two most seriously injured people were then evacuated to hospitals in Grenoble and Chambéry. “The seriously injured were suffering mainly trauma to the pelvis. We noted that the injuries were linked to a shock. But we cannot say at the moment whether this shock was violent or not. kinetics of the accident, we are not able to respond at this time.”
