She had just turned 18 a few days earlier.
A young woman died on Tuesday after falling from the highest part of the Saint-Nazaire bridge, in Loire-Atlantique.
The Saint-Nazaire bridge, which spans the Loire estuary, culminates at 68 meters above sea level.
The thesis of suicide was quickly dismissed: the father of the victim, who was on the bridge, was arrested immediately after the tragedy and placed in police custody.
The Saint-Nazaire public prosecutor's office has opened an investigation for intentional homicide.
Two soldiers from the gendarmerie on leave, who were on the Saint-Nazaire bridge on Tuesday afternoon, saw "a vehicle stop in front of them from which a man and a young girl were exiting heading towards the railing of the bridge" , Saint-Nazaire prosecutor Sylvie Canovas-Lagarde said in a press release sent on Wednesday.
“They saw the man throwing her into the void”.
The man, born in 1977, “marked his intention to jump from the bridge, a gesture interrupted by the soldiers”, specifies the prosecutor.
The young woman, born in 2004, succumbed to her injuries.
The investigation quickly established that it was a father and his daughter.
Drama on the Saint-Nazaire bridge.
Numerous maritime/air resources engaged by CROSS-A Étel to find the body.
- 3 CSL firefighters from @SDIS44
- Semi-rigid from PSMP Gend.Mar.
- "OCTANT" from @nantesport
- ECU44 @Forcesaeriennes
- NSH1 17.01 @SauveteursenMer pic.twitter.com/UA47x0TUrB
— Maxime Huguet (@stormaxou) June 28, 2022
Aquatic rescue means were also implemented to find another person who fell from the bridge, an 18-year-old woman.
When she was fished out by the firefighters, it was already too late: the young woman was in cardio-respiratory arrest and, despite the joint intervention of the SMUR (emergency and resuscitation structure), she did not could be revived.
The flagrant investigation of the intentional homicide count was entrusted to the brigades of Montoir-de-Bretagne and Saint-Nazaire, which will be interested in the environment of the victim and the circumstances of his death.