After Sunday’s shock, Roetert van Dijk and Sam Zadeh are in a state of confusion today. How should they proceed after the devastating fire at neighbor Bloomingdale that also seriously damaged their trampoline park? They are not insured, so the couple pays for the damage themselves. A thriving fundraising campaign on the internet is their only foothold at the moment.
Roetert van Dijk held on all day, but at the beginning of the evening he broke. Inspecting the wreckage once more, he saw out of the corner of his eye that a group of children made a handmade heart gesture in his direction. “That was the moment when I just lost it,” he says. “We’ve had a lot of messages of support, but this….”
On the line
What had kept him and his girlfriend Sam Zadeh afloat until that point was the endless series of phone conversations they had. Media, insurers, people posing as consultants, lawyers, Bloomingdale’s CEO; they talked to people all day long. “I think that kept us going,” say the owners of the trampoline park that suffered tens of thousands of euros in damage in the night from Saturday to Sunday. It is now closed, just when it is beach weather.
Confusion
The telephone conversations that Roetert van Dijk, who lives in Haarlem, had today, brought him hope, but above all also confusion. For example, an ‘advisor’ said that he could hold the neighbor liable for the damage to his park. The logical phone call he had with the CEO of Bloomingdale that followed, gave a completely different insight. Van Dijk: “He told me that he had been in contact with his insurer and that he had said that I cannot hold him liable.” And so it went all day long. It is the proverbial ride on the emotional roller coaster that he would rather have missed.
The dozens of statements of support in return ease the pain. It is impressive that Roetert and Sam are not insured and therefore have to pay for the damage to their trampoline park themselves. The fundraising campaign started by Roetert’s sister has only been online for a day and has already reached ten thousand euros. That is hopeful, but they are not there yet.
Priority
Their priority is to reopen the park. For this he asks about ten volunteers who come to cut the trampolines loose with a Stanley knife for a day. Roetert: “An enormous fiddling job, but with enough people we can fix it in a day. A sailmaker I spoke to says he can repair it quickly. So that offers hope.”
Therapy
Until then, he can’t help but clean up as much of the mess that caused the Bloomingdale fire as possible. It is a form of therapy that should help him and his girlfriend Sam through the coming days. “It’s our business, our life. We’re going to do everything we can to reopen as soon as possible and get back on track.”