A TEENAGE burn survivor who was in a coma for 18 days after the fatal Swiss bar fire has finally woken up but says she can’t escape the nightmares.
Roze, 18, was taken to a Belgium hospital after suffering horrific third degree burns in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, while celebrating New Year’s at the packed Le Constellation bar.
Sparklers from champagne bottles are believed to have caught the ceiling cladding alight, triggering a flash-over that engulfed the basement.
Tragically, 40 young people were caught in the deadly blaze, unable to escape in a bottleneck on a narrow staircase.
Since being brought out of the medically induced coma, Roze told Belgian newspaper “Het Laatste Nieuws” she can’t escape the nightmares.
“I’m afraid to fall asleep alone,” she said.
“Afraid because I know the nightmares will come again.
“Of course, I’m glad to be alive. But I also think about the dead very often – and that hurts.”
Roze has undergone multiple surgeries at the University Hospital of Liège and is still recovering in their care.
“In the worst case, it will take two years before I can use my hands again,” she said.
“Mom and Dad have to feed me and give me drinks; I can’t even go to the toilet by myself.”
Roze and her friend Nouran, also 18, arrived at the bar around 1.15am to take photos and videos of the festivities to use as advertising material, as arranged by Le Constellation owner Jessica Moretti.
Roze had begun taking photos of the basement bar, which at that point was heaving with partiers.
Waitresses had been encouraged to don costumes, including crash helmets and Guy Fawkes masks, to deliver multiple bottles of champagne to high-paying guests.
The staff had placed sparklers in the bottles and one waitress got on the shoulders of a barman as cheering revellers crowd around.
“I remember turning my head and suddenly seeing fire on the ceiling,” Roze said.
She immediately ran upstairs, repeatedly shouting, “Fire! Fire!” while looking for her Nouran.
Panic broke out as everyone raced to the exit and Roze was one of many to fall as people pushed and shoved their way to safety.
Read more about the Swiss bar fire tragedy here
She managed to escape through a broken window and began helping move bodies that were blocking the entrance, eventually finding her friend Nouran.
“She was horribly injured and in terrible pain,” Roze said.
Roze’s hands were too badly burnt to call emergency services, so she asked a driver on the street to call Nouran’s mother – who then drove them both to the hospital in Sion.
“From then on, I don’t remember anything,” Roze said.
Nouran will likely remain in a coma for at least another two months.
“I haven’t been able to speak to her yet; she has 80 percent burns, we don’t know how she’ll survive,” Roze said.
Venue owners Jacques Moretti, 49, and his wife Jessica Moretti, 40, are under judicial supervision and have blamed a young waitress for starting the blaze and blocking an escape route, a leaked police interview reveals.
According to leaked interrogation records seen by Le Parisien, the French nationals repeatedly told prosecutors: “It’s not us, it’s the others.”
During around 20 hours of questioning by three prosecutors, the couple allegedly pinned responsibility on waitress Cyane Panine, 24, who died in the blaze.
But her devastated parents, Jerome and Astrid Panine, said she was just following instructions from Jessica to “get the atmosphere going”.
“She trusted people without the slightest suspicion. She paid the ultimate price for this with her life,” her mother said.
