It is an important device that was deployed by firefighters in Périgny (Charente-Maritime), this Thursday, April 28. They were called around 2 p.m. for a chlorine leak at the Palmilude water park. A swimming pool which welcomed a hundred swimmers at the time of the facts.
In total, around sixty firefighters and around twenty emergency vehicles were mobilized for this intervention. An important device to support the 98 or so people who were in the water park. Among them, 31 were inconvenienced by the chlorine and only an 18-year-old man was taken to hospital of La Rochelle for mild problems with the respiratory tract.
Lots of coughing and itchy throat
“The objective to deal with many victims is to be able to treat them on the spot before carrying out the transport. It is the rapid medicalization, and the rapid triage of the patients”details Lieutenant-Colonel Francois Thèves, firefighter, to explain this massive deployment of resources. “This makes it possible to take care of the most serious cases and not to saturate the hospital center.”
Alexandra, a mother from Courçon, accompanied her children and friends of theirs. She is part with her daughter Sarah of the thirty people inconvenienced : “We were in the water at 2:10 p.m. Very quickly a gentleman opened the bay window that overlooks the outdoor pools wide, telling us to get out because there was a problem. Everyone was very calm “says Alexandra. “We smelled a strong smell of chlorine, we had a lot of cough, itchy throat. Some had headaches, and a gentleman was really not well and vomited a lot.”
For his daughter, Sarah: “It was burning in the throat, we wanted to vomit, and in the lungs we had trouble breathing. It’s better, they put an oxygen mask on me for a quarter of an hour.”
No more risk
According to Lieutenant-Colonel Francois Thèves, from investigations must now be carried out to understand where the problem comes from: “technically it is difficult to identify the source. The maintenance company will carry out the usual checks and in the meantime the aquatic center remains closed. We have ventilated the entire building and carried out all the checks with our specialized team at the chemical risks. There is no longer any risk in the building and a fortiori outside.”