Inquest opens into deaths of two Quebec firefighters [Video]

Linda Simard says her husband frantically told her to call 911 as he watched two volunteer firefighters get swept away in rushing floodwaters in Quebec’s Charlevoix region last year.

Simard was one of the first people to testify in the coroner’s inquest that opened on Monday into the deaths of the two men, who fell off their amphibious vehicle and into the river on their way to rescue her and her husband.

“It’s very hard,” Simard said during her teary testimony. “They were coming to save us.”

Coroner Andrée Kronström began hearing from witnesses at the courthouse in La Malbaie, Que., during an inquiry that will span several days in April and May, overlapping the first anniversary of the deaths of Christopher Lavoie, 23, and Régis Lavoie, 55.

Kronström said the goal is not to assign blame but to better understand what happened when the two men, who were not …