It is a disturbing scene which occurred this Sunday in Ostend and which readers from Liège told us about via our button «alertez-nous». Around 1 p.m., a man who was eating in a restaurant on the dike fell asleep at the table. He was present there with another person, who seemed to be his friend. Both looked rather tipsy. While his friend tries somehow to wake up the sleeping man, he ends up waking up and becomes turbulent.
Waiters quickly intervened to try to calm the man down, but to no avail. The boss then intervened and came to blows, annoyed because the two customers were scaring away the other customers of the restaurant.
The two friends, French speakers, ended up going their separate ways. The one who seemed the more boozy of the two staggered to the beach, where he collapsed on the sand and fell asleep. It was only two hours later, around 3:30 p.m., that tourists called for help. The man appeared to be in an alcoholic coma.
Police buggies intervened on the beach. The man was eventually brought back to the dike, where an ambulance was waiting for him.
Vacationers from Liège watched the scene from their balconies. “The entertainment of the day. Lots of tourists attended the scene. Beautiful image of Wallonia…”, writes Roger, one of them, via our button «alertez-nous».