On July 31, 1982, a terrible tragedy occurred on the A6 motorway near Beaune in the Côte d’Or: it was the deadliest road accident in France, killing 53 people, including 44 children. Most of the victims were on board a bus which was on its way, with another, to a summer camp in Savoie. A monstrous pileup that made headlines by the number of its victims. Sixty-two people survived, and among them, Sylvie. Now in her fifties and mother of four, she returned to the tragedy on the show It starts today presented by Faustine Bollaert. Dignified and strong, she tells how she experienced this episode of rare violence, she who suddenly lost, at the age of 15, her two brothers and her sister who were on board the bus like her.
The two coaches in question were intended to travel in July from Crépy-en-Valois in the Oise to Aussois in Savoie for a summer camp organized by the family allowance fund. This is how Sylvie was with all her siblings, but also cousins for this trip which was to be a nice vacation. On this day of great crossover in summer traffic, in the rain and with high speed – but which remains unknown to this day – the passage towards a dangerous zone of the motorway which goes from three to two lanes will be fatal for vehicles.
Sylvie remembers having swapped places so that her little sister could be seated in the front next to her friend. She then went to stand at the bottom of the vehicle, which will allow her to have her life saved, but not her sister: “That’s something I struggle with, I should have stayed with her.“A huge feeling of guilt has been eating away at the one who has become a mother since that day: why her and not the others?”We left with 12 of my family, I came back alone“, says Sylvie, her eyes filled with tears. Coming to the set, she wants to think of all the dead people, her family like the others, as well as the survivors, like her, who had to continue, even relearn, to live. .