In what can only be described as a living nightmare (or the plot of a Dan Brown novel), two teenagers have spent 72 hours lost in the pitch-black tunnels of Paris‘ famous catacombs i.e. the burial site of more than 6 million people.
The 16- and 17-year-old – whose identities are yet to be released – spent days wandering around the 240km maze of ancient skulls and bones, looking for a way out.
Search parties managed to track them down with the help of rescue dogs, who traced their scent, and the pair were rushed to hospital for treatment of hypothermia (the narrow passageways can drop to about 15-degrees at night).
It’s unclear whether they were on a guided tour and somehow got lost, or if they snuck down there to scare the shit out of themselves; only a small section of the burial site is open to the public, but plenty of big-balled tourists and school kids have been known to sneak down through secret entrance points for usually-forbidden photos opportunities.
Likes these.
If you’ve never been, Paris’ catacombs *are* fascinating; the centuries-old human remains were transferred there in the 1780s as a means of dealing with the city’s overflowing cemeteries.
Do you want to visit, maybe get an illicit iPhone snap while your tour guide is explaining purification to a nice German lady? Yes. Do you want to get lost down there, with nothing but your imagination? Please refer to the last three words of this story’s headline.
Source: The Guardian.
Photo: Getty / Brandon Rosenblum.
