After receiving a call from his daughter, a man who lives a few steps from a Swiss ski resort bar said he pulled 10 young people to safety as a New Year's fire turned the basement venue into what he called "a trap." From his hospital bed, 55-year-old financial analyst Paolo Campolo told the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero that he rushed to Le Constellation in Crans-Montana after his 17-year-old daughter phoned to say her boyfriend and friends were stuck inside. Campolo said he forced open an emergency door, found "bodies all around," and dragged out around 10 people despite choking smoke and heat, the Telegraph reports. "They were begging for help in several languages," he said. "They were very young."
Campolo's daughter got out unharmed, but her boyfriend is hospitalized with severe burns. At least 40 people were killed. Other parents are mourning, keeping vigil at hospitals, or still awaiting word about what happened to their children. "My son is ill, but he is alive, and that is the most important thing," said Umberto Marcucci, whose 16-year-old son, Manfredi, suffered burns to about 30% of his body after being caught in the flames while escaping.
One woman said she had been looking for her 16-year-old son for 30 hours, per Deutsche Welle. "The wait is unbearable," she told French broadcaster BFMTV. "If he's in the hospital, I don't know which hospital he's in. If he's in the morgue, I don't know which morgue he's in. If my son is alive, he's alone in the hospital, and I can't be by his side," she said. Campolo talked about what went through his mind as he pulled young people from the fire with his hands. "All I could think of was that they could have been my children," he said. (Sparkers on champagne bottles appear to have ignited the fire, which spiraled out of control in a "flashover" phenomenon.)
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