He crossed the water jet access barrier on Monday evening despite the formal ban on approaching it, witnesses reported daily.
He first tried to put his face on the nozzle, from which water gushes out of Lake Geneva at nearly 200 km / h or 500 liters per second, according to figures from the Services Industriels de Genève (GIS), which manage the “monument“the most famous in the city of Geneva.
Unsurprisingly, the young man found himself violently thrown back.
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The man was picked up by an ambulance
But the reckless did not stop there. After coming to his senses, he decided to surround the jet with both arms, the daily recounts.
This time, the force of the water propelled him in the air several meters and he fell back on the slab which surrounds the nozzle, before throwing himself into the water.
It was then that the police, alerted by witnesses, went to fish him out.
“The agents came to ask to cut off the water jet urgently to be able to pick him up”says a witness at 20 minutes.
The police men “rescued him and hoisted him up” in their boat, says Aline Dard, spokesperson for the Geneva police. Supported by an ambulance, the young man was taken to the University Hospitals of Geneva.
His condition was not immediately known.
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A jet inaugurated in 1951
The SIG announced that they were going to lodge a complaint, as they systematically do in the event of a breach of the security perimeter.
Geneva has had a water jet since 1891, and the one currently in operation was inaugurated in 1951.
Like many monuments around the world, Le jet d’eau is adorned with different colors to mark particular events or a celebration: the colors of the rainbow in solidarity with the LGBT+ community, red and white for the Swiss National Day.
In 2020, the city had decided to stop it for several months to mark the semi-containment due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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