A man died this Thursday, October 17, killed by a fallen tree during the floods which affected Île-de-France. Two children were injured.
A man was killed by a falling tree on the road in Paris this Thursday, October 17, BFMTV learned from a police source.
The events occurred around 8 p.m. at 17, rue Curial, in the 19th arrondissement of the capital. Two children were also injured and transported in relative emergency. Their mother, who fell ill, was also hospitalized.
• A fall caused by bad weather
The fall of this fragile tree was caused by the bad weather that hits Paris since this Thursday, according to our information. The Paris police headquarters confirms that the fall was “in the context of bad weather”, however, the circumstances of this accident “remain to be established”.
According to witnesses interviewed by Franceinfo, the tree was waterlogged when it fell. “The tree, which was imposing, had already been leaning for some time,” a resident of the residence told Le Parisien.
According to the mayor of the district, François Dagnaud, interviewed by the Ile-de-France daily, the trees located in the residence were being pruned. It could not have been pruned because “the rain was starting,” he continues.
• The man succumbs to his injuries
A witness to the scene said that the tree was “20 to 30 meters”. When he approached the tree, he saw that the man was underneath it. To date, this is the only victim of the bad weather which affected a large part of mainland France.
“We saw the man who was in bad shape. The police came, they couldn’t do much. It wasn’t a small tree that fell,” he recounts on the microphone of BFMTV.
“We heard people’s screams and that’s when we understood that it was serious. We rushed outside,” continues another resident interviewed by RMC.
The man, seriously injured by the impact, succumbed to his injuries.
• Three hospitalizations, including two children
“We heard the children shouting ‘my daddy is dead'”, relates the witness. The two girls, aged 3 and 5, were also affected when the tree fell. “We saw that there were children screaming, we quickly understood that there were two girls who were under the branches,” the passerby who rescued them reported to BFMTV.
They were treated with relative urgency. The mother of the two children was also taken to hospital after feeling unwell.
The family had been in a residence near the tragedy for two years. A medical-psychological emergency unit attended the scene. In a tweet, the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo declared that “the city of Paris stands alongside the family to accompany them in this very painful moment.”
