Nestor Fischer left Le Constellation bar before midnight on Wednesday night, finding it too quiet for a New Year’s celebration. It was a decision that saved his life.
When Mr. Fischer, 17, rejoined the line outside the bar’s veranda, roughly 90 minutes later, he hoped to find it a little livelier. Instead, he heard the sound of screams inside, he said, and saw smoke seeping from its doors.
Moments later, the smoke had turned into a full-on blaze. “It was a furnace,” Mr. Fischer said in an interview. “I saw people falling inside the veranda. Because of the lack of oxygen they were fainting, people were screaming.”
His rescuer’s instincts then kicked in.
With two other people, Mr. Fischer desperately tried to force open a glass door on the right-hand side of the bar, he said.
“It was stuck,” he said. “We tried to break it with a stool, we tried hitting the window but it wouldn’t open.”
Then, Mr. Fischer said, “I just ripped it off.”
It was a decision that likely saved lives, since it created an alternative escape route. Using phone flashlights, he said, Mr. Fischer and other bystanders tried to guide the crowds within to safety outside. As they emerged, he said, the victims “were completely disfigured, they had no hair, they were completely burned, we could only see terror in their eyes.”
Later, Mr. Fischer said, he and a friend, Nathan Laccore, who confirmed Mr. Fischer’s account, turned to help those who had made it outside, calling relatives on their behalf. There were only roughly six firemen on the scene, they said — too few to manage the scene.
“Everyone was powerless, it all happened so fast,” Mr. Fischer said.
Mr. Fischer recognized a friend whom he had skied with that morning. “He was completely burned,” Mr. Fischer said. “His back was burned, his T-shirt was stuck to his skin, his pants too, completely disfigured, his skin was coming off, he was screaming in pain.”
As reinforcements arrived, Mr. Fischer decided it was the right time to leave.
“I told myself I had to leave, it was horrible,” he said. “I had seen so many things.”
Ana Castelain contributed reporting from Paris.
Ségolène Le Stradic is a reporter and researcher covering France.
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