Two inanimate people were found on Sunday evening in the elevator of a residential tower in Villeneuve-la-Garenne.
An elevator that the couple tried to take, in panic, to escape a fire in this 12-level building on rue Gaston Appert.
It was around midnight that the first flames appeared in the kitchen of a home located on the 1st floor.
“Oil in a pan started to catch fire,” explains a police source.
The occupants of the apartment then threw water on the pan.
» A bad reflex after which everything went up in flames.
The fire spread to the living room, particularly to the sofa.
The four occupants of the apartment managed to get out themselves, quickly followed by all the occupants of the tower, around 200 people.
Among them, the couple living on the 8th floor rushed into the elevator, undoubtedly to escape the building as quickly as possible.
“Except that the elevator was completely smoked,” continues the same source.
The couple was poisoned, then resuscitated by the firefighters, then taken care of by the Samu before being taken in absolute emergency to the Raymond Poincaré hospital, in Garches.
» Five other people, also poisoned by smoke inhalation or slightly burned, were transported by firefighters to Beaujon hospital, in Clichy, while a firefighter, victim of “heat stroke” was admitted to Percy hospital in Clamart.
In total, 11 families, or 35 people including 11 children, had to be relocated to a hotel in the area after this disaster.