A heroic father saved nearly a dozen teens who were trapped inside a burning bar during a New Year’s celebration at an upscale Swiss ski resort — as the blaze killed 40 revelers and injured over 100 more.
Paolo Campolo, an Italian-Swiss dual citizen, was hosting a New Year’s Eve party with his fiancé inside his Crans-Montana home when he received a call from his 17-year-old daughter and noticed a glow outside his window coming from next door at “Le Constellation.”
“I was at home celebrating with my partner and friends,” Campolo, who lives less than 200 feet from the business, told Italian newspaper Il Messaggero from his hospital bed.
“It was around 1:20 a.m. when I saw blazing flames coming from the windows. Then my daughter Paolina called and it shocked me: ‘Dad, there’s been a massacre, there’s a fire, and there are many injured.’”
Campolo, who works as a financial analyst, dropped his celebration and sprinted towards the deadly inferno at the nightclub, where revelers earlier waved flaming champagne bottlesand ignited the ceiling.
“I immediately rushed into the street with a fire extinguisher when Paolina called me,” he said.
By the time Campolo had arrived at the once-packed bar, the flames had begun to go down, but “thick black smoke” surrounded the area.
“The combustion was very rapid, violent, and lasted only a few minutes. Then it stopped. But there was no more oxygen inside. And that’s what caused the carnage,” he explained.
“I immediately realized the fire extinguisher wasn’t needed. I tried not to lose my temper. Help hadn’t arrived yet. I looked for an alternative way out,” Campolo said.
Campolo — with the help of another fearless hero — discovered a back entry to the bar only to find it locked as several teens remained trapped inside.
“I don’t know if it was the emergency or service exit. It opened outward, but it was blocked or locked on the inside. But behind it, through the glass, I could see feet and hands. Bodies on the ground,” Campolo described the horrific scene.
The two strangers broke open a window large enough to pull the trapped patrons out.
“We put our foot against the adjacent window and pulled with all our might. The firefighters were getting organized, but there was no time to waste,” Campolo told the outlet. “At least an axe would have been needed, but we didn’t have anything at the time. I don’t even know how we did it, but with all the strength we had, we managed it.”
Follow The Post’s coverage on the deadly Switzerland nightclub fire
- Haunting photo shows revelers waving flaming champagne bottles as Swiss nightclub roof catches fire
- Young golfer Emanuele Galeppini named as first victim of Swiss bar blaze that killed at least 40
- French soccer player, 19, badly burned in deadly Swiss nightclub fire that killed more than 40
- Swiss nightclub where 47 people died advertised flaming champagne bottles in eerie promo video before deadly blaze
When he first arrived at the burning bar, Campolo found his daughter outside the building “motionless and in shock.”
Paolina was waiting for her boyfriend, who escaped but suffered severe burns and was hospitalized in Basel in critical condition.
Campolo says her daughter was late to the gathering at “Le Constellation,” after she returned home from school in Geneva and stopped at her father’s house to toast the New Year.
“She was saved by an incredible chain of events. A moment earlier or later, and it would have been a different story.”
Campolo was hospitalized with poisoning and his daughter was unharmed. His fiancé was badly injured in the aftermath and is fighting for his life at Basel, according to Il Messaggero.
The banker said several badly burned people toppled onto them, all alive, some unconcious others screaming in different languages, including Italian.
Campolo noticed an eerie trait in everyone inside, shared, “they were very young.”
“That place was a meeting place in Crans, frequented mostly by minors. In front of me, I saw many girls dressed in miniskirts and chic tops who suffered the fire firsthand,” he said.
The brave civilian first responders, as Campolo called them, dragged out the injured, “intoxicated” youngsters to an assembly point before returning to the smoke-filled bar to rescue more.
“They kept screaming. I only thought one thing: they could be my children,” he said.
“The looks. The lucid desperation of those who know they’re dying. Burned people looking at you and asking you not to leave them there. It’s something that never goes away,” he recalled.
Campolo was shocked to find there was no other exit the trapped crowd could’ve used, saying, “Whoever was inside had no escape.”
Swiss authorities have opened a criminal investigation against the bar’s two managers, who are suspected of involuntary homicide, involuntary bodily harm and involuntarily causing a fire.
The post Heroic father saved trapped teens from Swiss ski resort bar fire that killed 40 after phone call from his daughter appeared first on New York Post.
