An accidental fall into the canal is the scenario that seemed most likely for the rescuers who intervened this Saturday evening along the Scheldt.
An individual in his forties was walking with his dog along the water when he fell. He would have remained thirty minutes in the canal before being rescued by two divers from the Valenciennes and Cambrai teams.
On site, the police and firefighters had to walk more than a kilometer along the bank before they could reach the scene of the accident. The divers swam a hundred meters to rescue the man who was at risk of hypothermia. It must be said that at that time, the outside temperature hardly reached 5 degrees.
At 10 p.m., all six fire engines and two police cars left the site, near the Palais des Congrès. The victim was transported to the Valenciennes Hospital Center. There was talk of his dog, a rather docile mastiff, ending up at the pound at night.