A few months after the L’Isle-Verte tragedy, coroner Cyrille Delagé chaired the public inquiry ordered by the Quebec government to shed light on the events. It was during these hearings that I witnessed one of the most difficult scenes of my journalistic career.
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A witness, Nathalie Paquin, explains what she saw and heard during that terrible night of January 23, 2014, during the fire which claimed 32 victims.
A true horror scene that she captures in a disturbing video.
His testimony, as well as that of his brother who tried to save people engulfed in the flames of the Résidence du Havre, demonstrates the helplessness of first aid and the violence in which the victims perished.
Filed as evidence, some of these videos are made public at the Rivière-du-Loup courthouse, but the sound is muted to protect the families of the victims from greater trauma. Then, the late Cyrille Delagence took care to exclude the public and witnesses from the courtroom.
Coroner Cyrille Delagé, died in 2016. He was also a fire commissioner for the City of Quebec.
Karl Tremblay / Le Journal de Québec
Disturbing images
Only journalists, the coroner and lawyers view the entire videos with sound. Here is what I reported at the time in my report published in the pages of Newspaper of November 26, 2014.
“While terrible screams came from the residence gutted by the fire, it is possible to hear the chaos that is being experienced at the foot of the violent blaze. Passers-by and neighbors are disarmed.
“The lady is on the edge, my God, she is going to fall,” a woman strongly states, unable to help her and completely terrified. The crackling of the fire is powerful, as is the wind. We can hear cries of pain coming from the blaze.
- Listen to the column by Karine Gagnon, political columnist at JDM and JDQ via QUB :
“Come on, come on,” orders a man firmly. […] No firefighter is fighting the fire, there are just panicked people not knowing how to save the lives of these vulnerable elderly people.”
In this article, I report the facts. Point.
Traces
However, even today, these videos haunt me. The sound and images come to mind every time L’Isle-Verte resurfaces in the news.
Such powerful screams of elders burning alive, trapped on their balconies. Their breaths which were consumed until death.
This suffering lady, in panic, who quietly disappears into a heavy silence. Then, only the sound of the blaze and the cold January wind lingering.
This feeling that we have abandoned them.
In the courtroom that day, almost all the journalists burst into tears. A striking scene. To these images, I can unfortunately add a smell. The one that floats over the small village of 1,500 souls in the early morning of the tragedy, when I arrived at the scene of the tragedy with my colleagues. This white smoke, which escapes from the residence transformed into burning ashes. Impossible to forget such a tragedy.