We really did not go far from the drama.
A 14-year-old boy was struck by a train this Monday morning, around 9 a.m., on a pedestrian crossing serving to cross the SNCF track, in Héricy, on line R. Rescued by the firefighters, who requested the Immediate assistance from a helicopter, which landed in the town hall park, the teenager was finally evacuated by road, in the direction of the Melun hospital center.
The sign that the news was reassuring straight away.
“It's okay,” says Yannick Torres (SE), the mayor of the town, who stayed in touch all day with the boy's family, with his assistant Pascaline Coppé.
We have very good news from the mother.
Fortunately, he stepped back a bit when he noticed the train coming and it threw him away.
"
This return Monday after the All Saints holidays, the teenager goes to college on foot, in the thick fog that reigns over the department.
He then prepares to cross the railway line on the pedestrian crossing located at the end of Etienne-Dinet and François-Barthélémy streets, a few hundred meters from the banks of the Seine.
"I don't want to have a death on my conscience"
According to the first elements of the police investigation, the boy's attention is elsewhere, his eyes riveted on his cell phone.
He therefore neither sees nor hears the train approaching 110 km / h.
Fortunately for him, at the last moment the train driver saw him because on this rather cold and humid Monday morning, it was foggy.
He honks, which allows the youngster to finally realize at the last second what is going on.
A fraction of a second later and that would most certainly have been the drama.
According to the mayor, the boy only suffered from fractures, in particular in a femur and in the level of the bones of the face.
So that this does not happen again in the future, with a possibly more dramatic record, Yannick Torres took in the wake of a municipal decree ordering the temporary closure of this pedestrian crossing.
"We will discuss it and we will vote to approve this closure, at the next municipal council which will take place in December, explains the councilor since 2020. I do not want to have a death on my conscience.
I especially want this not to happen again.
"
Train traffic on line R was interrupted while the emergency services intervened on Monday morning, then gradually resumed during the day.