Swimming turned tragic this Saturday afternoon in Narbonne-plage. Two young men died. Another was saved by the intervention of the emergency services.
It was a call from a witness shortly after 2:30 p.m., a man who was close to Narbonne-Plage aid station No. 2 and who saw three young people in difficulty offshore, 100m from the shore, which triggered the rescue. The Aude Departmental Fire and Rescue Service immediately notified the two firefighters who had been pre-positioned at first aid station No. 1, due to the forecast swell.
Their quick intervention helped pull two young men out of the water. One was already in cardio-respiratory arrest. First aid measures failed to resuscitate him. The young man in his twenties was pronounced dead at the scene. The other rescued person had only mild aqua stress, and was taken to Narbonne hospital for observation.
With one person still missing, search and rescue operations continued. More than twenty firefighters were mobilized, two launches (those of the SNSM and the Maritime Gendarmerie) as well as two helicopters, the Dragon 66, which came as reinforcements from the Pyrénées-Orientales and that of the Samu from Aude.
But after an hour of research, it was the firefighters who were in the water who ended up finding the missing person. The 17-year-old had died and could not be revived.