Alain Panabière will spend his last night this Monday evening in the family home in Perpignan (Pyrénées-Orientales), a dilapidated living space that has become a death trap.
He has been in forced confinement for months, lying on the floor.
This 52-year-old man is morbidly obese and weighs nearly 250 kilograms.
This prevents any movement and prohibits a classic evacuation by the narrow and vertiginous staircase.
At the end of multiple meetings and reconnaissance missions on the spot, the actors of this operation (40 people) are ready to proceed with the rescue on Tuesday.
In the rue de Moulin-Parès, the lampposts were removed by municipal agents.
The terraced house was evacuated.
And on Friday the Hugon company, which supplies the lifting crane, received the container fitted out by the firefighters of the departmental fire and rescue service (Sdis) of the Pyrénées-Orientales to receive the patient at the level of the first floor, then transfer it smoothly and horizontally into the ambulance of the Hérault mobile emergency and resuscitation service (Smur).
Masons will have previously made a large opening in the facade.
The patient between torment and relief
Since Thursday, on prescription from Professor Antoine Avignon of the Montpellier Hospital Center, Alain has been receiving treatment to thin his blood circulation and prevent clots from forming when, for the first time in months, his body will move, destination the Saint-Eloy hospital in Montpellier (Hérault), where he will be medically treated.
“For a month now, I feel that Alain is psychologically tired, explains Me Jean Codognès, his lawyer.
Today he is torn between two feelings: the relief that he can leave the dangerous situation in which he has been for too long, but also the fear for this transport operation which may endanger his own precarious health.
There is also the worry of having to rock into a whole new existence that is opening up for him.
He explains that he is very touched by this extraordinary mobilization of the media and the public around himself, the inhabitants of the neighborhood and even beyond.
He receives messages of encouragement and he thanks everyone for this support.
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The lawyer has been fighting since July to get the recluse out of this impasse.
On October 29, he lodged a complaint with the public prosecutor for "failure to assist a person in danger and failure to provide assistance to a person in danger".
He had initiated this procedure on behalf of Alain, but also of the league against obesity.
Its president, Agnès Maurin, was scandalized by this blocked situation.
She and Me Codognès had alerted the Prime Minister, the Ministers of the Interior and of Health on the delay taken in the treatment of this case.
“This person would have been treated in a hospital for a long time if, in the fall of 2019, the medical authorities had not encountered categorical opposition from the family circle of this patient.
You shouldn't touch the house.
We had not been able to obtain his signature when the Montpellier hospital was prepared to take charge of him, ”we told the Perpignan prefecture, responsible for the proper organization of this particularly delicate and completely new operation.
