THE FISHERMAN WHO GIVEN THE ALERT WITNESSES
Karl Maquinghen, the fisherman who raised the alert on Wednesday after the death of 27 people in the Channel, remains haunted by the images of the floaters. “Seeing so many dead like that next to us, it’s really a horror film”, told a few journalists the fisherman, just disembarked, in the middle of the night from Thursday to Friday, from the trawler on which he works as a second. , at the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer.
On Wednesday, it was he who saw the first body on the surface of the water, from the bridge of the boat, the Saint-Jacques II. He said that he then saw “about fifteen”, “dead people, children”. “Those who did not have a life jacket, we could not see them”, explained the fisherman, except for one “dressed in black”, with “a plaid shirt”. This one, “I saw him because he passed two meters from the boat, not even a meter,” he said, on the verge of tears.
“The Coast Guard was not far away, 2 miles from us. They came straight away.” “If we had arrived 5 minutes before, we might have been able to save them,” regretted Karl Maquinghen. “We don’t sleep on it. As soon as you close your eyes, you see the body again”. “We were even afraid of hauling up the nets, for fear that there would be one in”. “This is the first time this has happened to me, it feels weird.”