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The last family holiday before their two oldest children start student life was meant to be full of beautiful memories. However, their stay in Sardinia ended with a severe tragedy. The murmur of the sea, the chirping of the crickets and a gentle breeze are filling the campsite in Sassari (Sardinia). Laughter is heard from pitch 15. Under the awning of their caravan and in the cosy atmosphere of a table chimney, seven travellers from Luxembourg ? Mr and Mrs Biewer, their daughter (22), her boyfriend and their three sons (12, 15, 20) ? enjoy dining together in the open air. Their oldest son finishes first and sprawls on the hammock, while the rest of the family keeps eating. Thereupon, the father gets up to refill their table chimney, which runs on bioethanol. ?There was a sudden hiss and my face went up in flames. The image of that fire is still etched into my mind?, confesses Mrs Biewer in a faltering voice. Mrs Biewer and her husband are in flames. Quick-wittedly, the children throw towels over their mother. The oldest son makes a lunge at his father and throws him into the sand. Driven by panic, the mother starts to run, misses the little wall surrounding the terraced pitch and trips over it. A neighbour hears her screams, hurries over to her and throws himself on her to extinguish the fire. Some eyewitnesses call the emergency services. The arriving ambulance is the last image in the mother?s mind before she looses her memory. 25 per cent of her body sustained second- to third-degree burns. She even had to be reanimated on her way to the hospital. Later on, the doctors placed her into an artificial coma. With burns of a second and third degree on 5% of his body, her husband got off relatively lightly. The children came away with a shock, as their daughter points out: ?All of a sudden, my brothers and I relied completely on ourselves, in a foreign country whose language we do not speak. Although I am an adult, I felt helpless and was relieved when other adults supported us?. Apart from a supportive campsite neighbour, who allows the children to sleep in her caravan, it is above all the contact with Luxembourg Air Rescue, which gives the daughter something to hold on to. Two hours after the accident, she is speaking to Stéphane Belkadi from the LAR alert centre. On a daily basis, he and his colleagues receive calls from members caught in medical emergencies abroad. Strokes, heart attacks and road accidents are among the most common circumstances for repa
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