Driver crushed by a tree in Paris: an investigation entrusted to independent experts

It is not a seized weapon, a confusing testimony or a DNA trace but a tree trunk of more than 15 m, green with moss, waterlogged, smashed with a collar, which is the main part of an investigation from police.

The City held responsible?

This Friday, the elm trunk which crushed a car traveling on Quai Branly (7th) the day before, killing a man, is now under seal, in the hands of experts from the ONF (National Forestry Office). And justice. The investigation was entrusted to the Service for Judicial Accident Treatment.

Experts will have to determine if the accidental fall of this tree was predictable, if there were detectable traces of disease and therefore if the City - which manages nearly 100,000 alignment trees - can be held responsible and therefore potentially prosecuted for manslaughter.

Thursday, at 1:35 p.m., when Météo France announced wind gusts of up to 117 km / h and the capital was placed in yellow alert, a tree crashed at the Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac.

A 69-year-old man from the Yvelines

At that time, a man was driving his Saab. The tree smashed the car, killing its driver instantly. A few meters away, two pedestrians, a 33-year-old mother and her 8-year-old son, watched helplessly at the tragedy. They were very shocked and slightly affected by small branches of trees.

The firefighters cut the elm and extricated the victim. This Parisian, 69 years old, from Grosrouvre in the Yvelines, was declared dead by the doctor of Samu Necker. The body was taken care of by the city's undertakers and transported to the Forensic Institute "for an external examination and toxicological samples as a precautionary measure," said a police source.

The elm trunk is now in the hands of NFB experts. "They want an independent expert outside the city, decrypts a source familiar with the matter. Man died. "

The tree was sick

According to a source familiar with the matter, the accused elm, "normally a very hardy tree", was ill. "It has a focus of rot" on the trunk, that is to say, fungi. And to continue: “A gust can lay down a healthy tree but with its root system. However, this elm, instead of being uprooted, was severed by the collar, broken. "

At the Hôtel de Ville, we defend ourselves: “The elm had been checked in April 2018. The Tree and Wood Service of the City of Paris had carried out a complete phytosanitary diagnosis not identifying any lesions or special risks. Could the City have done something between April 2018 and now? Cut it down as it has cut down "about 13,000 trees since 2014 for phytosanitary reasons" - dangerous, dead or severely decaying trees - "in order to ensure, as she says, the safety of users"? It will be up to the investigators to determine.

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Motorist killed by falling tree