The extreme stress caused by hiding from the truck driver who killed 84 people in Nice, France, on Thursday caused one woman, who was waiting on a nearby beach for the violence to end, to go into labor.
A young woman from the Madeleine neighborhood of Nice had been enjoying Bastille Day celebrations at the Ruhl Plage restaurant when the violence erupted. The woman, her husband and her children ran for safety to a beach restaurant off the Promenade des Anglais, according to Le Figaro journalist Paule Gonzalès.
βNine months pregnant, she all of a sudden collapses in a fit of contractions brought on by anxiety and fear,β GonzalΓ¨s wrote after speaking to the restaurant ownerβs son. β[Restaurant] employees carried her into the air-conditioned kitchen and managed to isolate her despite people seeking refuge in every corner, even under refrigerators.β
A doctor was among the terrified crowd and managed to keep watch over the woman for an hour before firefighters arrived and brought her away, Gonzalès reports.
βBetween 300 and 400 people sought refuge in the restaurant,β waiter Enrico Colovic told Metronews. βIt was total chaos.β
People were even jumping into the water to move as far away as possible from the gunfire, Colovic said. People sought shelter in the kitchen, the bathrooms and even dumpsters.
Colovic tried to do his part, he said, by distributing water, food and blankets. The police finally evacuated the restaurant around 12:30 a.m. local time.
This story has been updated with information from Metronews.
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