Emergency doctor about the Crans-Montana New Year’s tragedy: “People with third-degree burns often no longer feel pain”

The drama in Crans-Montana raises confrontational questions. What is it like as an emergency responder to arrive in a place where chaos, panic and dozens of injured people come together? Who do you help first, when everyone else is screaming for help? What awaits people who emerge badly burned from such an inferno? “A disaster is always pure chaos that occurs in a few minutes,” says doctor Ignace Demeyer. The emergency physician at the OLV Hospital in Aalst speaks from experience: as an emergency responder, he was one of the first on the scene of the Switel fire in Antwerp (1994) and the train disaster in Halle (2010).

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