Firefighters took care of five people suffering from hypothermia among the 35 shipwrecked passengers of a coach stuck all night without heating near the TGV station at the Poitiers amusement park.
Nightmare night… and freezing, for Flixbus customers stuck in the parking lot of Futuroscope station (Vienna). Thirty-five passengers on a bus linking Lisbon to Paris spent the night of January 19 to 20 near the Poitiers amusement park because of a technical problem, according to The New Republic and Here Poitou. Without heating and without an immediate solution offered by the company while it was below zero degrees that night, five of them ended up in hypothermia and had to be taken care of by the firefighters. Two people were hospitalized.
“I felt my body temperature drop”one of the passengers told The New Republic. The driver had left the door of the bus, when stopped, open. Impossible to take refuge in the station, closed during the night. The passengers organized themselves to keep warm among themselves as best they could, also using the coach’s curtains.
-A rescue bus…the following evening
The police and firefighters finally intervened to take care of the castaways. The town hall of Chasseneuil-du-Poitou, where the station is located, brought coffee and hot water before opening a community room to provide warm accommodation for passengers. It was only around 6 p.m. that a replacement bus was offered to them by Flixbus to resume their journey.
Two passengers filed a complaint against the coach company. The prosecution has opened an investigation for failure to assist a person in danger, relays Ici Poitou. Contacted by Le FigaroFlixbus had not responded at the time of publication of this article. The company, which transported 81 million passengers around the world in 2023, is the leader in coach transport in France.
