VIDEO – Bad weather in Ariège: stranded in their car, a retired couple saved by gendarmes

They came close to death on Monday January 10. In Prat-Bonrepaux in Ariège, a retired couple found themselves trapped behind the wheel of their car, at the exit of a tunnel where water rushed in because of bad weather. “I started to enter the water. When I saw that it was going up to the level of the headlights, I engaged the reverse gear and the complete stop, everything stopped, the engine, the car“, says the husband.

The water level reaches two meters. The man manages to escape, but cannot free his 76-year-old wife. He then calls for help. The firefighters are too far away to intervene in time, two gendarmes are sent urgently. “We from there, we see a car underwater to the top of the cockpit. We don’t ask questions, we dive into the water and we go to her“, says the gendarme Fruchart, of the gendarmerie brigade of Prat-Bonrepaux.”I start to lift it, I make a sign to my colleague that it is there, we will start the extraction. Me, I carry it on my chest and my colleague carries it at the level of the forearms and tries to keep its head above water“, she continues.

The septuagenarian is safe and sound and struggles to realize it. She still trembles. “Five more minutes, if they hadn’t arrived in time, I felt death“She said. Difficult today to find the right words.”She is a lovely person, very kind. All my life, well all that’s left for me to live, I’ll remember“, she says, very moved. The 26-year-old gendarme remains modest.”We realize a little more the action we have done. It creates a little emotion, I must admit“.

During the last 48 hours, the Ariège gendarmes recorded 150 emergency interventions in the department, one of the most affected by bad weather.

TF1 | Report S. Chevallereau, F. Maillard, É. Fourny