08.27.07

Drama on the Seine

Posted in Paris Life at 8:34 am by rachel

The beautiful – but choppy – waters of the Seine.

The Seine river is the place to be on a Saturday evening. From candle-lit picnics to tango dancing, there’s something for everyone, drawn to the water by some primordial urge for the lapping of waves or the constant, reassuring flow of water. It’s a romantic walk, from the quays near Notre Dame to the far-reaches of the 13th arrondissement, which I highly recommend when the weather cooperates, and was our main event this past Saturday.

But the Seine is also notoriously dangerous: in 1843, Victor Hugo’s daughter and her husband drowned in the river when their taxi boat capsized, and the swift currents have carried off many victims over the centuries. In my research of 19th-century newspapers I often come upon articles about drownings in the Seine – young boys carried off, workers accidentally falling in only to be swept away, futile rescue attempts… This river is more wild than it appears, with often-changing water levels (many times flooding), a violent undertow, and a steady flow of river boat traffic.

While enjoying the former, romantic side of the Seine on Saturday evening, we came across a reminder of the latter. Just west of Notre Dame we noticed a small crowd gathering to look into the water. I thought maybe someone had dropped something, or perhaps a dog had fallen in (we often see dogs swimming in the Seine, which is worrisome to say the least). We glanced over the quay and sure enough, it was a man.

Only the silhouette of his head was visible, which meant he was a strong enough swimmer to be treading water beneath the surface. He was staying close to the edge, which was smart, but there was no ladder in sight. A floating jazz bar, however, was not too far away and there was a tire hanging from it that appeared within arm’s reach. He made his way over to it, but must have been tired because he had trouble grabbing the tire. People began to take notice of the situation, however, and the jazz music soon stopped while several workers from the bar scrambled to find something for the fallen man to grab onto.

Luckily, the man operating the floating bar was very quick to grab a long ladder and put it over the side of the boat. He climbed down to rescue the man, but once it was clear he could climb up himself, he did so, and was finally safely out of the water. We couldn’t tell if he was with a group of concerned friends or if only curious passers-by made up the surrounding crowd. In any case, there was a collective sigh of relief when he was finally out.

The man who had fallen in is able to walk up the ladder.

The rescuers arrived shortly thereafter and I directed them to the scene of the incident, telling them to speak with the man at the floating bar, who had rescued the man from the water. Several boats full of sapeurs-pompiers were on the scene, some of them in wetsuits. This is a highly-skilled, hard-core group. We’ve seen them in the Seine before: the following photo is from last April (we’re not sure if this was an exercise or if they were diving for something or someone in particular).

The sapeurs-pompiers diving for…something? 

In any case, the incident Saturday night and the serious emergency response made the lesson clear: be very careful about falling into the Seine, an accident that should never be taken lightly. The river has become a fixture of daily life in Paris, but we should never underestimate the danger beneath the surface.

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