‘I feel so empty... it’s like my heart has been torn out’
A GRIEVING father caught up in the Nice massacre has spoken of his heartbreak over the death of his four-year-old son.
Mickael Coviaux and his wife had taken their only child Yannis out to play on the beach with friends before watching the Bastille Day fireworks.
As they walked back to their car, the boy was mown down by the lorry being driven by terrorist Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel. Yannis was left with fatal injuries after his tiny body was flung 30ft through the air. The lorry missed Mickael and his wife by inches.
‘I feel completely empty, as if somebody has torn out my heart,’ Mr Coviaux said.
He told how he later cradled his son in his arms and ‘stared out at the sea’ after the atrocity as he tried to process what had happened.
Mr Coviaux said: ‘It was my wife who insisted that we went out to see the fireworks to make Yannis happy.
‘We were sitting on the beach with my wife’s friend, her nieces and her two children.
‘Yannis was delighted – he was messing around with his pals. It was a beautiful evening.
‘At the end of the fireworks we went up to the Promenade des Anglais to get back to our car. My son was a little further on with his friends.’
Seeing the lorry suddenly veering towards them, Mr Coviaux said he pulled his wife to safety but could not save his son. ‘The lorry passed within ten centimetres of me,’ he said.
‘I went to the floor and when I got up there was this crowd around us. I was praying to God that Yannis was safe and sound but then I saw him lying 20 metres in front of me. He was covered in blood.
‘I understood what had happened straight away.’
Mr Coviaux said he ‘didn’t want to believe he was dead’ and that he picked up his child and began running ‘like a madman’ towards the nearest hospital a mile away. After sprinting 600 yards along the road with his son in his arms, Mr Coviaux said he bundled him into a car full of strangers also en route to the hospital before they spotted an ambulance ahead of them in the road.
Paramedics began their attempts to save the boy and Mr Coviaux said he then ran back up the promenade to find his wife, where he was confronted by another tragic scene.
He said: ‘Selfishly, in the panic, I only thought of my own family. But then I saw my wife’s friend lying in the road.
‘She was dying in the street in front of her own children.
‘My wife and I went to the hospital to see Yannis but the doctors simply told me it is all over. They gave me a white sheet and left us. My wife was screaming.
‘I stayed there for a long time cradling my son in the white sheet, staring at the sea. I held my baby in my arms, my baby who died at the beach.
‘He was four-and-a-half years old and we called him our little rascal. Once he was on the beach he never wanted to leave. His loved throwing pebbles into the sea. My last certainty is my son died happy. It was a lovely