A horrific accident, resulting in the deaths of four people and almost twelve others injured occurred on Saturday, 25 June 1932. A 5.5-kilometer (3.42-mile) public roads course named "Circuit de Lorraine at du Grand-Couronné", near the village of Seichamps, not far from Nancy, department of Meurthe-et-Moselle in north-eastern France, was the stage of the I Grand Prix de Lorraine. The main event was a race for Grand Prix cars held over two heats of thirty laps each; a twenty-three-lap voiturettes race and a motorcycle event were also part of the program.
After starting the fourth lap of the first heat, the French driver Émile Tétaldi lost control of his #22 2-litre Bugatti T35C, which skidded right round, crashed through a fence and somersaulted, hitting at high speed a group of spectators. Four of them were killed, many others including the driver Tétaldi, were taken to both the Hôpital Central and the Hôpital Sedillot in Nancy.
The four spectators who lost their lives were:
- M.me Lucien Lange, 31, who lived in the nearby village of Pulnoy, wife of a famous French racing cyclist;
- her eight-year-old son Louis-Roger Lange;
- another young boy, Jean-Félix Bernard, aged seven, from Art-sur-Meurthe;
- a young man, whose name was not released, who passed away several hours later at Nancy hospital.
Amongst the injured spectators were another unnamed child of the Lange family, three soldiers named Delfolie, Lecat and Herter; Mr. and Mrs. Roule from Nancy; Jean Rémond from Art-sur-Meurthe; M. Chaton from Homécourt; and three ladies named Raynaud of Nancy, L'Huillier of Châtenois en Alsace, and Gueldon of Maxéville.
R.I.P
