A hero banker saved ten youngsters from the Swiss ski resort inferno by forcing open an emergency door after his teenage daughter rang him pleading for help.
Paolo Campolo, 55, raced from his home in Crans-Montana to Le Constellation bar, where he prised open a side door to allow panicked revellers to run for their lives as the building filled with roaring flames and smoke in seconds.
At least 40 clubbers were killed and another 119 injured, 80 of them critically, when a devastating blaze ripped through the basement of the packed club as it hosted New Year’s Eve celebrations.
Mr Campolo, a Swiss-Italian financial analyst, rushed to the scene after his distraught daughter called him to say her boyfriend and friends were trapped inside while she was waiting to enter.
With the main entrance blocked up by people cramming to escape, he identified a door off to the side and forced it open.
Footage posted online appears to show a man forcing open a door to the right of the main entrance and a clearly distressed young woman immediately bursting out, though it’s not clear whether this is Mr Campolo.
Speaking from his hospital bed, where he is being treated for smoke inhalation, the heroic father recalled the harrowing scene that lay behind the door.
He told Italian newspaper Il Messaggero: ‘There were several bodies all around. Alive but burnt. Some conscious, others not.
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Paolo Campolo, 55, rushed to Le Constellation bar after receiving a distress call from his teenage daughter
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Footage posted online appeared to show a man forcing open a side door as flames rip through La Constellation
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High quality photographs show the very first moments of the Swiss Constellation Bar fire in Crans-Montana, where dozens died on New Year’s Eve
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People film the ceiling on fire at the Swiss Constellation Bar fire in Crans-Montana
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‘They were begging for help in several languages. They were very young.’
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Le Constellation was particularly popular amongst younger age groups, and many of the victims are teenagers.
Fire crews and emergency teams were already at the club when Mr Campolo arrived from his house just 50 yards away.
The flames had died down, but scores of people were trapped inside the building that had filled with choking smoke, and there was a crush at the singular exit point.
Working with another man, Mr Campolo managed to pull open the other door, behind which he could see ‘hands and faces’, and several people immediately spilled out.
He continued: ‘I didn’t think about the pain, the smoke, the danger.
‘I pulled kids out with my bare hands. One after the other. They were alive but injured, many of them seriously.’
When asked what he most remembered from the traumatic night, Mr Campolo said: ‘The looks. The lucid desperation of those who know they’re dying.
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British-educated Charlotte Niddam is among the missing after a deadly fire tore through a bar in the Swiss Alps
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The schoolgirl, believed to be 15, has not been heard from since a fire tore through a packed bar in Crans-Montana, Switzerland
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The footage, taken by French economics student Ferdinand Du Beaudiez, shows flames ripping through the Crans-Montana club as revellers continue singing, dancing and shouting – unaware they are already trapped in extreme danger
‘Burned people looking at you and asking you not to leave them there. It’s something that never goes away.’
Former pupil at British school is among the missing in Swiss ski resort inferno
His daughter would also have been inside the club when the fire took hold had she not stopped over at the house to cheers the New Year with her parents.
Mr Campolo is recovering in a hospital bed in Sion, Switzerland, after inhaling smoke, and his daughter was unharmed, but her boyfriend is fighting for his life in a hospital in Basel.
Among the injured are 71 Swiss nationals, 14 French and 11 Italians, along with citizens of Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Luxembourg, Belgium, Portugal and Poland, according to Frédéric Gisler, police commander of the Valais region.
The nationalities of 14 people were still unclear.
Officials said identifying the dead and the remaining injured could take days owing to their burns.
One confirmed to be missing after attending the club is a 15-year-old schoolgirl educated in Britain called Charlotte Niddam.
Ms Niddam babysat for pocket money in Crans-Montana but has not been heard from since the fire.
