A hero father rescued ten young people from the Swiss ski resort blaze by forcing open an emergency exit.
Paolo Campolo, 55, rushed to Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana after his teenage daughter phoned him in distress.
She told him her boyfriend and friends were trapped inside while she waited to enter the venue.
The Swiss-Italian banker lives just 50 yards from the nightclub.
At least 40 people died and 119 were injured in the New Year’s Eve tragedy, with 80 victims in a critical condition.
The main entrance had become blocked by crowds desperately trying to escape.
Mr Campolo spotted a side door and managed to prise it open, allowing panicked revellers to flee.
Speaking from his hospital bed in Sion, where he is being treated for smoke inhalation, Mr Campolo described the horrific scene he encountered.
Perhaps the people who took the fireworks into the building, will be in trouble, unless they have already perished. I avoided places that were that crowded, partly because I disliked tobacco smoke.
Paolo Campolo spotted a side door and managed to prise it open, allowing panicked revellers to fle
He told Italian newspaper Il Messaggero: “There were several bodies all around. Alive but burnt. Some conscious, others not.
“They were begging for help in several languages. They were very young,” he recalled.
Behind the door, he could see hands and faces pressed against the exit.
Working alongside another man, he pulled the door open and several people immediately tumbled out.
Le Constellation was popular with younger crowds – and many of the blaze’s victims are teenagers.
Italian journalist Marco Colombo told GB News last night that diplomatic pressure was mounting from Italy on Swiss authorities as to why “so many young people, as young as 13-years-old, were allowed into such a location”.
Mr Campolo said he ignored the pain, smoke and danger as he worked to free those trapped inside.
“I pulled kids out with my bare hands. One after the other. They were alive but injured, many of them seriously,” he recalled.
When asked what stayed with him most from that night, the father spoke of the victims’ expressions.
“The looks. The lucid desperation of those who know they’re dying,” he said.
“Burned people looking at you and asking you not to leave them there. It’s something that never goes away.”
Fire crews were already on scene when Mr Campolo arrived, but thick smoke had filled the building and crowds had crushed against the single exit.
Footage from inside the bar showed the moment fire began to spread across the ceiling in a ‘flashover’ | X
Mr Campolo’s daughter escaped harm only because she had stopped at the family home to toast the New Year with her parents before heading out.
Her boyfriend remains in a critical condition at a hospital in Basel.
The injured include 71 Swiss nationals, 14 French citizens and 11 Italians, according to Valais regional police commander Frederic Gisler.
Victims from Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Luxembourg, Belgium, Portugal and Poland were also among the casualties.
The nationalities of 14 injured people are still yet to be confirmed.
Online footage appeared to show a man forcing open a side door as flames engulfed the venue, though it remains unclear whether this was Mr Campolo.
