Two miracle victims testified at the bar of the trial of the attacks in Trèbes and Carcassonne (Aude), Friday January 26. Two very different stories. Two survivors of the same attack. The first, Renato Gomes, was the first victim of the terrorist’s deadly journey, who shot him in the head. The second, Julie L. (she asked to remain anonymous), was his hostage for almost an hour. He still lives today with the bullet that lodged in his skull, she with the imaginary bullet that she never received.
Renato Gomes is 31 years old. Today he is a postman in Narbonne. On March 23, 2018, he should have died. His presence at the helm of the Paris Special Assize Court is a miracle. It had been just a year since this Portuguese man left his country when he crossed paths with the jihadist who hated his country. That morning, he was walking in the undergrowth near the Aigles parking lot in Carcassonne, known as a place for homosexual meetings, when a young man, Radouane Lakdim, a radicalized delinquent, called out to him: ” What are you doing here ? »
Renato Gomes replies that he is smoking a cigarette. They then see a third man, Jean Mazières, a 61-year-old retired wine grower, walking in their direction. “I look at him, the terrorist too. And at that moment, I take a bullet in the head. Mr. Mazières, this is my last vision before the ball…” Jean Mazières was shot shortly afterwards, with a bullet to the skull, and died on the spot.
“We have to manage to live with that”
Renato Gomes is not dead. The bullet that punctured his left eye socket spared vital areas of his brain. He loses consciousness and collapses to the ground. “It happened very quickly… On the other hand, it didn’t happen quickly while I was alone… he said with his simple words and lilting accent.
– Yes, it lasted almost two and a half hours… whispers the president. During all this time, Renato Gomes will be alone in this parking lot with a bullet in the head.
– Suddenly, I wake up, I look at the sky, I try to get up…”
He gets up, walks, falls, gets up, falls again. He still manages to drag himself a few dozen meters towards the road, hoping that someone will see him. Around 10:25 a.m., he called his mother. He tells her he was shot. The conversation is surreal: “She didn’t believe me. Something from a movie. I was missing words, because of the bullet. I couldn’t tell where I was. I described to him the trees, the flowers that were around me…” He then calls the hospital and the fire department, but is unable to say where he is.
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