It is a bruised woman who expresses her anger. For the first time, Nathalie speaks publicly. She is the wife of the civil agent of the Creil air base, hospitalized since February 16 because affected by the coronavirus.
Aged 55, this delivery controller was one of the first two affected by the disease in France. A month later, his wife reveals her truth. A month of suffering trying to find out how this "damn virus" could have reached her husband, father of two children and twice grandfather.
In what state of health is your spouse?
Nathalie. Since the start of his hospitalization, I have been told every day that he is in stable but critical condition. He came out of an artificial coma on Wednesday after four weeks. Now it is negative for Covid-19. The virus has eaten all of his lungs. We will see him three times a week, for an hour. We live day after day.
How it all began ?
Flu symptoms appeared on Thursday February 13th. I called the Samu on Sunday the 16th because he was having trouble breathing. The paramedic who took him had no protection. Imagine the number of people he could see behind having been infected and without taking precautions.
He was then admitted to Compiègne hospital ...
First in the diabetology department. There he spent a day with a gentleman in a double room. The nurses also had no protection there. Then his condition deteriorated and he was in intensive care. There, sometimes, we were asked to put on masks and gloves, other times not. Many relatives came to see him. On Saturday, February 22, in the evening, he was urgently evacuated to the University Hospital of Amiens (Somme) .
Had the caregivers been told where your husband works?
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Yes, I said so at the hospital in Compiègne. But at that time, the doctors were instructed to screen only those who returned from travel. They therefore did not test it. If they had done it from the first day… He would not have spent six days there in contact with everyone without any precaution.
When did you learn that he had coronavirus?
They decided to test it in Amiens on Monday February 24. The results fell on Tuesday evening. I stayed on the phone until 3 am with the Regional Health Agency (ARS) which was starting its epidemiological investigation to go up the chain. I was alone, in shock. I had an anxiety attack.
Was your husband the only sick person in the family?
No. My son, my daughter-in-law and I were tested in Amiens just after my husband was found positive. My son and his partner were too, not me. But four days later, they were already gone because they had been affected for a long time.
Today they are doing very well. But we lived in horror. My uncle was turned away from his kart club, my aunt turned away from her knitting club. We have been harassed by some media. I also filed a complaint against one of them, because he revealed the identity of my husband. I don't wish anyone what we went through.
Have you looked for the origin of your husband's contamination?
My husband has not traveled, he has never been to China and has never known the deceased teacher of Crépy-en-Valois. My husband told me that he was aware of three people from the Creil air base, two “hostesses” and a pilot, who were responsible for the repatriation of French people living in China (see box at the end of the article) .
He was never in contact with them, but he was with the husband of one of the two hostesses. He worked with him at the base. I do not see how it can be otherwise. Except that when I ask for explanations at the base, I am told "secret-defense". Besides, this pilot and these hostesses have never been tested. At least not on time, only more than ten days after my husband was hospitalized. Obviously, they were negative.
Is that how you think the virus spread?
There were lots of sick people in my husband's offices and all over the base. My husband fell ill because he worked with people who were also affected by the coronavirus, but without knowing it.
Who do you want?
The people in charge of the base will never recognize that my husband caught the disease on this site. I would like them to recognize that it is an occupational disease but that would mean that they did not do the right thing. The government will not admit that it made a mistake in repatriating these people.
You're angry ?
My back is not strong enough to attack the state, the government, but I blame him very much. I could not do anything on my side, but we must support the doctors who filed complaints against the ministers. I am not accusing the military base but rather the officials of the country of having sent this plane to repatriate these people, of not having known how to manage this crisis. But now, there are so many cases that the little lady of Lacroix-Saint-Ouen, they don't care…
La Grande muette persists and signs
Was patient zero on the flight that repatriated French people from Wuhan, as Nathalie thinks? No, says the Ministry of the Armed Forces, which recalls that the "cabin crew" was equipped with "FFP2 masks, gloves, gowns and goggles".
And to repeat that "the crew members returned to their homes at the end of the mission without going through the Creil base and benefited from the surveillance protocol for 14 days. Their temperature was taken twice a day. None exhibited symptoms. "
The soldiers have not been biologically tested, this version is not incompatible with that of Nathalie. This assumes that within the crew that left for China, a member returned carrying the Covid-19, but while being "healthy carrier". This member is said to be a flight attendant, who is said to have transmitted the virus to his spouse. A spouse who works with Nathalie's husband on the air base.
To the question of a soldier who is sick but has no symptoms, the Ministry of the Armed Forces does not provide a clear answer. It simply confirms that the relatives "of the agents who carried out this mission were not subjected to the same follow-ups".
Two tests decided simultaneously ... but far too late
How to explain the multiplication of cases within the air base? An epidemiological investigation was carried out on the site. The result ? We will not know. However, it would have enabled "the total breakdown of transmission and the end of the epidemic" within the base.
Questioned, the hospital of Compiègne, where the patient was initially admitted, recalls for its part that "at that time, the national order was to screen only people returning from China".
Despite this, Nathalie's husband “was negative for the flu and his condition was getting worse. After several days, we therefore asked for a screening from the referring regional infectious disease specialist. But as the patient did not return from a risk zone, we did not have the approval, ”explains the hospital center.
Finally, Compiègne and Amiens hospitals, where the man was transferred in the meantime, decided to screen him simultaneously. The results of the two trials were positive for Covid-19.
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