Parents from the Garderie Éducative Ste-Rose de Laval returned to the scene of the tragedy yesterday to pay tribute to the two little victims who died, still struggling to realize that their own child had narrowly escaped him.
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“Of course I think back on that and wonder what could have happened if I had arrived five minutes earlier. It’s not easy to imagine, “said André Beaudoin, one of the first people to intervene to try to control the suspect, to the media.
Photo QMI Agency, Joël Lemay
In front of the Garderie Éducative Ste-Rose, a boy took the time to stop and observe the flowers and stuffed animals left in memory of the children who died under the wheels of the bus on Wednesday.
“I just want to pay tribute to the families, we think a lot about them, we just think about our children,” he continued.
The latter had just arrived at the daycare to leave his two-year-old child there in the care of the educators when the bus hit the building head-on on Wednesday.
Photo QMI Agency, Martin Alarie
Late Wednesday evening, the bus was towed past a patrol car that served as a memorial.
Believing in a simple accident, he and other parents quickly intervened to help the toddlers, while several were stuck under the mastodon.
“I wanted to save all the children”
Another father, who arrived at the same time, told the cameras about the heartbreaking scene that unfolded.
“I wanted to save all the children. I also wanted to master the danger that this man was. I had to choose between saving the children and controlling the individual, ”recounted Mike Haddad, his fists still marked by his furious struggle.
Photo QMI Agency, Joël Lemay
Mike Haddad is one of the first to intervene in the daycare.
After having managed to contain Pierre Ny St-Amand, he then headed for the bus, where children were shouting for help. He managed to clear some of them.
“I said to her: ‘my little girl, I’m going to take you out, I’m coming to help you,’ he said, his voice broken by emotion.
The police then asked him to leave the scene to allow them to do their job.
“My sympathies to the parents who have lost their children. I hope those in the hospital are doing well. I think everyone did their best. I cry for the parents who have lost their child, I cry for them. We are with them. We love them, may they stay strong, ”said Mr. Haddad.
a gift
The mother of a 2.5-year-old girl who attended the Laval daycare center believes that a twist of fate saved her child from being among the victims.
- Listen to Benoit Dutrizac’s interview with Hamdi Ben Chaabane, present on the stage of the drama in Laval on QUB-radio :
“If the routine had been usual, worse than I had deposited Chloé in the room of the butterflies. She would have waved goodbye to me in the window, and it was the window on the corner that was smashed, ”dropped Geneviève Berthiaume Gagnon.
“Probably Chloe would be in the hospital today, that adon saved us,” she added, as she came to meditate at the scene of the tragedy.
She had dropped off her daughter around 8:10 a.m., 20 minutes before the collision which killed two children and injured six others.
“Normally, his local is not open. But that morning, yes,” she explains.
– With QMI Agency