This is a little miracle: two acrobats in 35 years of circus company Inextrémiste, based in the Indre, have survived a fall of nearly twenty meters, Sunday in Montreuil, near Paris. Their evening had started. After the last performance of their show Extreme Night Fever , the Nouveau Théâtre de Montreuil, the 15 members of the company went to the birthday of a friend resident in the town of Seine-Saint-Denis.
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about 4 o’clock in the morning, while the party still fighting to his full, two of the participants overshadow: Marco, trampolinist, a musician and a pillar of the company, has planned to ask Elise, a trapeze artist, a marriage of the most romantic of ways: on the roof of the hotel Ibis Styles town Hall of Montreuil, located on the seventh floor, with the whole town at their feet. He convinces so its nice to climb on the roof via a scaffold. “For them, it was something easy and natural. These are artists of a very high level, which occur at the international,” says Yann Écauvre, artistic director of Inextrémis.
The lovebirds are hanging out so on the roof, immersed in the dark at this hour of the night. It will not have the time to put the knee on the ground: the young woman, who was walking ahead, fall in a circular shaft. “I don’t really understand what was supposed to serve this hole between two buildings”, asks the artistic director. In any case, there was a barrier raised by, who had to serve to the butcher and had perhaps been moved”, imagine-t-it.
‘Bouncing’ on the edges of the wells slowed their fall
seeing his companion fall, Marco tries to catch her by the jacket, but it results in his downfall. “The well was narrow, with dimensions of approximately one meter by three. They have rebounded on the edges, which slowed their fall. Marco has also done everything to slow it down by trying to hang on to the walls,” explains the director. Extra Chance: the pit stops at the first floor of the building, which shortens it by a few metres the crazy descent.
both are aware of it, and the trampolinist finds the strength to contact his friends from the troop by telephone. These prevent the fire that will eventually free the couple an hour later, after having broken a wall of polystyrene. The two injured were taken to the hospital of Montreuil.
In view of the importance of the fall, the young man is doing quite well, with only fractures to the feet and the coccyx. It is also released from the hospital Monday. For his girlfriend, the assessment is more severe: she suffered three fractures to the vertebrae (lumbar, dorsal, and especially a cervical, the more likely the development of serious complications). But after nearly five hours of operation, it is the relief for Elise: she can move her legs. For a week in the hospital followed by three months of rest in a plaster, it should even be able to return to the circus, hope the director of the troupe.
according To the artistic director, the alcohol would not be an issue
toxicological analyses were underway Monday to determine if alcohol or drugs had played a role in the idea to climb on the roof of the hotel, which the manager refused to any statement. According to Yann Écauvre, the members of the company had “a little drunk during the evening, but it was several hours before the accident”. The investigation to search for the cause of injury initiated by the tribunal de grande instance de Bobigny, has been closed without a result.
The members of Inextrémiste were of course very shocked by this fall. “We have not been able to sleep for 24 hours. There, it is just beginning to breathe again,” says the artistic director of the company. By chance, this accident should not disrupt the upcoming shows: liners were already provided on all the positions for their next creation.
