by Alessandro Sala
He had holed himself up under a convoy, and the owner’s appeals went unheeded: “They didn’t allow us to pick it up and they didn’t want to delay the departure. So they judged him”
The year couldn’t start worse for Georgina Milonas and her daughter Melaïna. The day after New Year’s Eve, they were at the Montparnasse train station in Paris, ready to return to Bordeaux, when suddenly their inseparable Neko, the cat who accompanied them everywhere, slipped out of the van and hid under the train. There were 20 minutes left before departure, but they weren’t enough to save him. At the time indicated on the board, the convoy drove off and the cat was literally cut in two. And that’s the image that continues to plague Georgina, who now screams her pain and anger in the French newspapers, particularly in Le Parisien, which has taken the story to heart. mourning the loss of what was considered a family member in every sense; and the anger at having faced a wall with every request for intervention.
The cat had slipped under one of the cars and didn’t want to get out. For safety reasons, the woman was not allowed to go down to the tracks next to her to retrieve it, as she herself was electrified. A rescue team was not dispatched and the intervention of the fire brigade was not to be expected. And what was worse, the departure of the convoy could not be prevented. “They told me that after all it was just a cat and that it was not possible to stop traffic on such a crowded day – he told the Paris newspaper, recalling the events of January 2 last year – and I was that also calmly said that Neko would have moved by himself when the train departed». But that was not the case and the animal died heartbreakingly before the eyes of its two mistresses.
Days later, the pain persists and anger has also increased because SNCF, the national railway company, has contacted them to invite them to recover the animal’s body. Georgina feels teased: They couldn’t go down the tracks to retrieve him when he was alive, but they were when he was dead. According to Le Parisien, the company explained that in the second case, the animal’s remains could be safely recovered with the help of tools. However, the woman has said she doesn’t want to travel with what’s left of her Neko in a plastic bag.
But that is not all. Because beyond the tragedy that befell the family, there is an important element of reflection. It was young Melaïna, 15 years old, who summed it up: «To let our cat travel, we had to pay for an ad hoc ticket. This means that he was considered a passenger in every respect. But if so, why wasn’t his safety guaranteed?”. Social media is excited about the topic. Was it really not possible to delay the departure and have a specialized rescue team, maybe the fire brigade, which also literally intervened to rescue the kittens that can no longer get down from the trees, intervene to save the pet? Because that’s the point. We are not in Japan, where the trains beat to the beat and the conductor apologizes over the loudspeaker if the convoy departs or arrives more than 60 seconds late at the agreed time. Delays are also taken into account by the passengers, and if asked, the occupants of the train in question would probably not have resisted a small delay in order to be able to save the animal. But that day nobody seemed to want to hear reasons. Georgina hopes that what happened to them will not happen to others again. “If the law doesn’t protect the animals traveling with us – he told Le Parisien – then it needs to be changed.”
January 20, 2023 (change January 20, 2023 | 22:24)
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