On July 14, 2018, this Tervilloise mother carried her 6-year-old son on her shoulders so as not to miss any of the fireworks. But this magical moment turned to tragedy. An incandescent projectile fell on them. The mother and her child were seriously burned.
Four years later, the town hall of Terville and the artificer in charge of the show were sent back to the criminal court of Thionville for involuntary injuries. The trial was held Thursday.
The town hall had declared the event, the installation and its place in the prefecture. The artificer, a municipal employee, trained twenty years earlier, had indeed an authorization to shoot fire. But a candle has derailed. It did not correspond to the planned projectiles. The supplier has modified the order. The artificer did not check it, nor did the municipality. However, the safety distance between the firing plane and the crowd was not adapted to the range of the candle, fired at the edge of the water on soft ground. This is what finally emerges from the expertise.
Many witnesses were heard. Videos taken by shocked spectators were exploited. The area has been modeled to try to understand. Because on the evening of the tragedy, the national police were not notified. The places were not frozen. All the equipment had been repackaged. “Our priority was the victims,” said the mayor of Terville, director general of services at the time, in 2018.
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Judgment rendered on April 28
The mother and son’s lawyer, Me Boh-Petit, wants to refocus the debate on the victims. Because beyond the technical aspect, she insists on the human dimension of this business. She rewinds the scene. She evokes this mother whose T-shirt suddenly catches fire. She recounts her incomprehension, her dread on discovering her boy’s burnt legs. She describes the screaming. It recalls the painful management in a sterile room, then the long repair. It points above all to the indelible physical and moral consequences.Have
“It is an addition of negligence which led to these dramatic injuries”, summarizes the deputy prosecutor. He requires a fine of 7,500 euros against the town hall and a fine of 1,500 euros against the pyrotechnician. “I’m sorry for what happened,” he repeated.
But according to the defense lawyer, Me Chiche, the account is not there: the supplier of the fireworks, who modified the order, is missing at the bar. He denounces a flawed and sloppy procedure. He asks the court to moderate the sanction against the artificer and the release of the town hall.
The court will rule on April 28.
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