Six months have passed since the deadly floods which left 39 dead and more than 100,000 victims. Stéphanie is one of the victims of this disaster. She is the mother of twins aged precisely … 6 months. This mother of a family was indeed about to give birth when her house was drowned under two meters of water, in Chaudfontaine, along the Vesdre.
With part of her family, she was rescued at the last minute by firefighters and the son of a farmer. “This July 16, around one in the morning, the firefighters arrived swimming“, remembers Stéphanie.”They suggested that I go in a zodiac, but I didn’t want to because some boats had overturned. The son of a farmer (Antoine, in his twenties, from Fléron) has heard about my case, presumably via social media, and arrived in front of my house in a tractor. Helped by the firefighters who joined forces to protect us from the current and hoist us up, my 12-year-old daughter, my mother and my dog found themselves in the dumpster, me in the cabin. The tractor was able to travel a few dozen meters before taking on water and being blocked on the spot. I was then evacuated by ambulance to the hospital where my twins were born a few hours later. The doctors confirmed to me that one of the children presented badly and that none would have survived if I had given birth at home “.
This mother of a family never saw the son of the farmer who saved them in this way. With her companion, father of the twins, and the rest of her family, she would like to be able to thank him in person and hope that he will come forward as a result of this testimony.