"He's a hero, it's going to be his blase now!" Wherever he goes, Samy Hammouche is the pride of Marcouville in Pontoise. Native of the city where a violent fire raged in the night from Thursday to Friday, it was he who warned the firefighters.
"It was 2:25 am, I was at home and I started to hear explosions," he recalls. I went to the window and saw the black smoke. These escape from the underground parking lot at the foot of his building.
Samy immediately called 18. "I told them that there were at least three or four cars burning but they did not believe me. They even laughed! Finally they came anyway. "
As soon as they arrive, he helps out
The young man who dreamed of becoming a fire soldier when he was little finally started training as a truck driver at the start of the school year. But this Friday morning, instinct took over. Samy goes down to lend a hand to the firefighters to whom he indicates the place of the disaster as soon as they arrive on site. With two other young people from the neighborhood, they help them carry the oxygen tanks from their truck parked higher up the street.
And the young man is curious. "A firefighter made me a little drawing to show me how they worked under it," he reports. They were asked how many vehicles were on fire when they arrived and they said about ten. We were the ones who laughed when they told us that like they didn't believe me at first! "
10 minutes after alerting the firefighters of a hole that was forming, the slab collapsed
While the firefighters are busy in the basement, Samy goes around the slab. It was then that he noticed a small hole in the ground being formed. "I took the video and went to show it to the firefighters," he continues. They took everyone out, there were at least twenty of them there. About 10 minutes later the slab collapsed. It vibrated on the ground, we thought it was an earthquake. "
VIDEO. Slab collapsed in Pontoise: "I believed in an earthquake"
At the same time, Samy notices that the residents of the foyer have gone out to watch the show from the gangway of the neighborhood house. "I told them it was going to collapse but they didn't want to believe me. After everyone ran away. The teenager then goes back to get his mother and big brother who stayed in their apartment and takes them out as a precaution.
"It lightens the image of the neighborhood, even if there are delinquents there are also heroes"
Today in the Marcouville district "people are proud", he smiles, remaining humble. The word hero, he assumes it but does not boast about it. "For me it's basic to do that," he simply says.
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Around him, however, young people are full of praise. "It's cool that it was a little brother who did this," said a 19-year-old neighbor. "Frankly, respect, that's what he did, he saved lives," added an elder in his thirties. "It lightens the image of the neighborhood, even if there are delinquents there are also heroes," concludes Najib, 14.
At this stage, the prefecture is still examining the possibility of thanking the young man.
