The Nord departmental fire and rescue service (SDIS) and Roubaix hospital were ordered to pay 300,000 euros to a man who became a quadriplegic after the misdiagnosis of a stroke in 2012.
The administrative court of Lille condemned Wednesday May 16 the departmental fire and rescue service (SDIS) of the North and the hospital of Roubaix to pay 300,000 euros to Christophe for having misdiagnosed him during a stroke. (stroke). The man, now 44 years old, has been a quadriplegic since the tragedy.
On August 17, 2012, Christophe Blard feels bad. Around 8 p.m., he called the firefighters and described his symptoms to them: dizziness, vomiting, balance and speech disorders. Thinking of a heatstroke, the firefighter on call advises him to go home. But on the way, the man collapses. About two hours later, a passerby discovered him unconscious in the street and took him to Victor-Provo hospital in Roubaix.
On site, the doctors wait two hours before deciding to send him to the Lille CHR “given the seriousness of his state of health”. Arrived on site at 3:30 am, it is too late: Christophe already has “flaccid tetraplegia in all four limbs” following his stroke. A neurological examination diagnoses that he suffers from “locked in syndrom” or confinement syndrome. If his intellectual faculties are intact, he is today quadriplegic and dependent. He is conscious, hears and sees but can no longer speak.
“The operator who took the call did not do the necessary”
After six years of proceedings, the Lille administrative court finally condemned the SDIS and the Roubaix hospital center to pay him 315,287.43 euros as well as 18,000 euros to his parents. Indeed, according to the justice, the 3h30 delay in the treatment of the patient deprived him of “30% chance of undergoing a less unfavorable neurological evolution and of preserving less heavy sequelae from the cerebral vascular accident of which he was victim”.
“It is clear from the call he makes to the fire brigade that he is in a state of distress and in any event that the operator who took the call did not do what was necessary. malfunction of the service”, testified Blandine Lejeune, Christophe’s lawyer, at BFMTV. In its defence, the SDIS du Nord, asserts that the duty firefighter who took the call responded to the victim “in an appropriate manner given the large number of calls that day, his very limited medical skills and symptoms described by the person concerned that may evoke pathologies other than a cerebrovascular accident”. Following the court’s conviction, he said “take note of the decision” in a statement but has not yet indicated whether he will appeal.
Are French rescuers overwhelmed?
This case is reminiscent of that of Naomi Musenga, who died at the end of December after contacting the Strasbourg Samu who had made fun of her on the phone. Five months later, revelations about the circumstances of his death triggered a huge media storm and led to the opening of several investigations. The Strasbourg public prosecutor’s office has opened a preliminary investigation on the grounds of non-assistance to a person in danger and the parents of the victim have filed a complaint to find out the exact causes of their daughter’s death. At the same time, an administrative investigation was opened by the university hospitals (Hus). The Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn must in particular meet with emergency doctors to take stock of the tragedy.
Since these revelations, testimonies relating to facts of negligence flow into the media. Recently, the cases of two 90-year-old women who died in the Tours emergency room two weeks apart caused a scandal. Both were at the end of their life following a serious illness and remained between 4 and 6 hours lying on a stretcher in the room. The first death occurred on the night of April 11 to 12, the second on May 3. This suggests that the first death was not an isolated case.
The doctor recalls, however, that “the teams are trained to support patients in the last moments of life”. In this case, however, the two patients took their last breaths unassisted in a crowded waiting room with 12 and 15 stretchers, which can only accommodate six.
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