As soon as the lights went out, around 9 p.m. this Wednesday, in a room at the Pathé in Annecy (Haute-Savoie), people began to smell an irritating and suffocating odor.
“It was quite unpleasant because it stung my eyes and throat.
We have also heard people seized with a violent fit of coughing ”, testifies one of the indisposed customers.
A spectator therefore went out to warn the reception of the cinema, which immediately stopped the screening.
"I immediately called the firefighters, but, as a precaution, I did not wait for them to arrive to empty the room concerned," explains Cyrille Combier, director of the Annecy multiplex.
“Apparently, some did not understand what was happening when the image stopped and we turned on the lights,” he continues.
Not everyone had breathed the stale air.
"
We are all evacuated from the cinema in Annecy I have no idea what's going on, I'm almost afraid there pic.twitter.com/H5SWaAhhxM
- c ⁷ (@mlrd_cmj) August 4, 2021
All evening sessions canceled
Around 171 people used the emergency exits to go outside the cinema located in the city center, not far from the station. It was then that around forty firefighters arrived on site, establishing a security perimeter around the building and taking care of the intoxicated individuals with the support of the Samu. The important device deployed for a time worried the inhabitants, quickly informed of the incident.
"In the end, four spectators felt symptoms more strongly, such as the eyes which weeping or irritation of the respiratory tract, which can make you think of tear gas", summarizes the captain Stéphane Bordone, of the departmental fire service and of relief. After a short period of observation, everyone went home without going through the hospital. The other evening sessions have been canceled.
In addition to room 8, where OSS 117 was scheduled, the adjoining rooms were also evacuated, ie 70 people.
Firefighters specializing in chemical risks carried out very extensive NRBC-type surveys (nuclear, radiological, biological, chemical).
The investigations continued until 10:30 p.m. in the attic and in the basements, without detecting anything abnormal.
The cinema was therefore able to reopen its doors on Thursday.
A procedure opened at the Annecy public prosecutor's office
The causes of the incident remain unknown for the moment. The police, with ten agents dispatched on the spot, did not find any criminal act, as confirmed by the divisional commander Labbé of the departmental direction of the Public security 74. “The trail of a person hostile to the sanitary pass requested from the cinema has been mentioned, but there is absolutely nothing to support this thesis, he says. It could be a bad joke, an involuntary leak of a product carried by a spectator in their bag, or an air conditioning problem. “A procedure has in any case been opened at the Annecy prosecutor's office.
The only serious victim of the evening is an employee of the cinema who had a cardiac arrest linked to the stress of the situation, after having rushed by bike to his place of work, warned of the incident. Reanimated and transported to hospital, he is out of the woods. "With all the rescuers and firefighters on site, he was really very lucky," concludes the director of Pathé d'Annecy after this strange evening.
