I am still in shock. My mind refuses what happened, as if it were only a nightmare waiting to fade with the morning. But it doesn’t fade. Every time I close my eyes, it all returns—the screams, the smoke, the bodies, the hands clawing for air. Sleep has become impossible, because sleep takes me back there.
I saw people being revived on the floor, their lives hanging by a thread.
I saw people burned beyond recognition.
I saw people die.
I was outside, yet the horror reached me like a wave. A violent red glow pouring from the building, dust choking the air, chaos exploding in seconds. Then the crowd rushing toward the stairs, pushing, falling over one another, blinded by panic. It was no longer a crowd—it was a desperate stampede.
In that moment a cruel truth ruled everything, a truth no one had to say aloud:
whoever got out first would live.
And so some were trampled. Some fell and never stood again. Some were left behind, trapped, while fire and smoke took everything. They died in there.
That is what destroys me.
Not only what I saw, but what I know—that so many lives were decided in a few seconds of terror, on a staircase, in a shove, in a breath that never came again.
And that hell is not over.
It lives in the eyes of those who were there.
It lives in the dreams that no longer let us sleep.
It lives in people like me—who walked out… but never truly escaped that night.
Crans-Montana tragedy: separate investigations and serious charges against the Morettis
Two days ago, Swiss authorities questioned Jacques and Jessica Moretti in two separate hearings, as required in particularly sensitive cases. The couple, owners of Le Constellation in Crans-Montana, are now under investigation for multiple counts of involuntary manslaughter, arson, and negligent injury following the devastating New Year’s Eve fire that turned a night of celebration into disaster. Jacques has been arrested, while Jessica has been placed under house arrest.
Jacques described the moments immediately after the fire erupted, recounting his desperate attempts to save Cyane Panine, the 24-year-old waitress who died in the flames.
“I tried to resuscitate her for more than an hour,” he said, adding, “I raised her boyfriend like my own son. We tried together until the rescuers arrived and told us it was too late.”
Jessica, meanwhile, conveyed the drama of those chaotic moments, recalling an evening that had seemed calm at first.
“The night had begun without any warning signs,” she said, with only a few customers present until around 1 a.m., and no hint of the disaster to come.
According to the couple’s account, the fire started during the service of sparklers — small decorative candles placed on bottles to make the evening more spectacular. The young woman seen in videos, standing on a colleague’s shoulders while holding a bottle and a sparkler, was not a customer but one of the club’s waitresses.
This detail radically changed the perspective on the incident, highlighting the risks linked to certain practices at the venue, which had already been flagged in the past by authorities. Jessica reportedly explained:
“It wasn’t something we always did. It wasn’t the first time, but I never stopped it — and I never ordered it either.”
She also described how sparks from the sparklers reached the soundproofing panels on the ceiling, causing the flames to spread rapidly.
“I sensed a movement in the crowd, and immediately afterward I saw an orange light in the corner of the bar.”
Within minutes, the situation spiraled out of control. The venue was ordered to evacuate, firefighters were called, and her husband received an emergency message:
“There’s a fire at Constel, come immediately!”
Jessica described what happened as “the tragedy of my life,” reflecting on the irreversible trauma caused by an event that began as a celebration and ended in catastrophe — with the girl in the helmet at the center of an episode destined to mark Crans-Montana forever.
