He admits that he was probably reckless.
But his story ends well.
Sébastien, 37, in any case experienced a big fright at the end of the day on Friday, which led him to be missing one night.
Without his relatives being able to know if he was alive or not.
As the torrential rains began to fall in the Alpes-Maritimes, the thirty-something who was returning from work from Monaco did not hesitate to go back to his home in the Vésubie valley around 6.30 p.m., in full vigilance red weather .
Mistake.
“I wanted to take a mountain road towards Utelle, I knew it was complicated,” he says.
He entered the causeway, but very quickly water was streaming from the cliffs.
Stones are starting to pile up.
The beginning of the problems: “It stuck me, my vehicle could not move forward, it even started to be carried away.
The driver decides to get out.
The showers are dense, night falls.
The water level rises around it.
He manages to attach his 4x4 with straps and leaves on foot.
"I still ran into people who refused to help me ..."
“I was soaked, I had 50 cm of water up to my knee, I reached a part of the road where it was less gullying up to a vehicle that I had spotted on the way up, I couldn't see nothing.
I still ran into people who refused to help me and to call for help.
He then takes refuge in the abandoned car a ten-minute walk away, the doors of which are fortunately open, and even finds clothes to change.
In the meantime, he manages to warn his cousin, but the phone goes wrong.
The conversation even fears the worst.
VIDEO. Floods in the South-East: spectacular damage and many missing
The cousin immediately warns acquaintances in the area who go in search of the castaway.
“Quentin and Nico, I want to thank them, they took enormous risks to come and pick me up when they didn't know me.
The improvised rescuers manage to locate Sébastien and arrive at his height after a good hour.
But impossible to leave, a landslide is now blocking the road.
“Fortunately, they knew people who lived in an isolated house around the corner.
We walked to them.
They welcomed us and we were able to spend the night ”.
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But during this time, relatives are worried.
Impossible to prevent them.
No communication is possible as the flood deepens.
The three men therefore wait for the next day, hoping for a lull.
“When I came back to pick up my vehicle that we managed to recover, there was a bit of a network, I was able to warn my wife, in her voice I understood that she had spent a difficult night.
I would have been better off going to a hotel or staying somewhere safe than taking this route.
"