In the subdued room of the bar of the 25hours Hotel opposite the Gare du Nord, in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, Priscilla Moittié sits down and adjusts her posture by swinging from one buttock to the other.
The 36-year-old exudes the tension and focus of preparing for what lies ahead.
She pulls down her red blazer, matched with a floral blouse and dangling earrings.
This Friday, April 8, she came from Breteuil, in Picardy, to talk about her son Nolan, who died in September 2019. Eight years after eating a ground beef contaminated with E.coli bacteria.
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He is 23 months old when he takes this meal.
Over the days, the toxin poisons his blood and mutilates his organs.
First the kidneys, leaving him with only one functional one, then the pancreas, the heart and a bit of his brain.
After a month and a half in a coma, Nolan wakes up.
He is 80% disabled.
In the book testimony
Nolan finally rests
(1), published on April 6 by Flammarion, Priscilla Moittié recounts the ordeal of her son and his eight years of disability.
Eight years punctuated by frequent trips to the hospital.
Eight years at the bedside of a child imprisoned in his body, who does not walk, speak or eat (he will be fed by a gastric tube), "because of a minced steak", she says , often.
Maintenance.
Health authorities recently confirmed 50 E.coli contaminations in
Buitoni pizzas.
Two children died.
How do you feel at the dawn of this new health scandal?
Priscilla Moittié.-
It shocked me, for a week, I sleep very badly.
I didn't think it would happen again 10 years later.
After the trial, I told myself that there would be more checks and that no more children would be affected.
I heard some parents say it was their fault… Everything they go through, I went through too.
It reminded me of my experience, memories with Nolan in my arms, when I took him to the hospital, when his state of health deteriorated.
You decided to write this book in memory of Nolan and to “bring him to life one last time”. What little boy was he until he was two years old?
He made me see all the colors, he was very active, got up every day at 6 am, constantly wanted to go outside.
He was a very “present” child.
He was smart.
One day he nearly choked on a piece of bread and I was very scared.
From then on, he played on my tendency to stress about everything and sometimes mimed suffocation (laughs).
We were very close.
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What happens during the days following its contamination?
Symptoms appear 10 days after this meal.
One night, he finds us in our bed and has difficulty breathing, a doctor diagnoses bronchitis.
Then, the diarrhea begins and in six days, everything is linked.
We go to the emergency room, then to the hospital, but we are told that it is constipation and that “it will pass”.
Me, I see that there is something else.
He can no longer stand up.
We go back to the emergency room and this time they take care of him because he is dehydrated.
They think of gastroenteritis.
At night, he suffers, he howls.
The next morning, he is blue and doesn't say a word.
My husband takes over and tells me to go home and rest, which I do.
A few hours later, he reminds me: Nolan is between life and death and transferred by helicopter to the hospital in Amiens.
At the hospital, we are told that “it will pass”.
Me, I see that there is something else.
He can't stand up anymore
Priscilla Half
When does the diagnosis take place?
In Amiens.
When we arrive, the doctor announces that one of Nolan's kidneys has failed, that he has suffered a cardiac arrest and that they have put him in a coma to prevent him from suffering.
Meanwhile, a lab calls me asking if he's eaten a Country brand ground beef.
Other children were infected and were in Lille hospital.
Nolan had to join them for dialysis to remove toxins from his blood.
The bacteria had already attacked the kidneys, pancreas and heart.
After a month and a half of hospitalization, the doctors tell us that we must expect a death.
But Nolan wakes up.
Full screen
“Nolan is finally resting”, Flammarion editions, by Priscilla Moittié with Caroline Andrieu.
flammarion
You say you no longer recognized your son…
I didn't even know if he recognized me.
He was a vegetable, he had no reaction.
When I waved my hand over his eyes, they didn't move.
I thought it was a bad nightmare but he was going to eat again, talk.
Then back at the hospital in Amiens, the neurologist told me: “Nolan won't walk anymore, won't talk anymore, won't eat anymore, he will have to adapt a car…”.
I didn't believe it, she showed me the MRIs and I saw white spots all over her brain.
I had no hope, I told myself that it was over, that his life was over.
You write that the hospital saved him from the bacteria but then his life was hell. What was the daily life with Nolan afterwards?
Eight years of disability and seven round trips to the hospital.
He often caught infections.
A simple angina and he ended up hospitalized under morphine.
Our life has been completely reorganized.
For a year and three months, I stayed with him, I was off work.
Then, he slept two nights a week at the Jules Verne educational center, to benefit from the work of physiotherapists and occupational therapists.
It also allowed him to see other children and then me, to rest.
Nolan wasn't sleeping, he was throwing up every night.
For six years, I slept only three hours each night.
To communicate, he smiled, he tweeted.
When he no longer saw me, he panicked, he screamed.
We kept our close relationship, even if he didn't speak, because I understood him.
People around me keep saying, "I wouldn't, I cook properly"
Priscilla Half
The guilt of having bought these chopped steaks has eaten away at you for a long time, you write. Are you finally relieved?
I wanted it a lot.
How many times have I said “it should have happened to me, I should have died of it”... My father, who was babysitting Nolan that day and preparing food for him, still blames himself.
He often asks me: “Do you think that if I had cooked it differently…?”.
I feel like my guilt disappeared at the time of the trial, but when I think about it, I'm not so sure.
Even if there has been a judgment and we know the culprit, people around me continue to say: “it wouldn't happen to me, I cook properly”.
They don't say it meanly, but I think they are trying to reassure themselves.
Your couple survived this ordeal. How do you stay together in such circumstances?
We argued a lot during these eight years.
We didn't live, we survived.
I was in my bubble with Nolan, his father immersed himself in work.
We almost separated several times, I told him that I was staying for Nolan, not for him.
And then we didn't last so many years to part like that.
We bonded again.
Today, nothing more can happen to us.
We weren't living, we were surviving
Priscilla Half
Even as a couple, you felt very alone…
Our whole life revolved around Nolan, so inevitably we make fewer friends and those we have no longer come, no longer ask us to come to their house.
And then people go on vacation, we don't.
We don't blame them, but we envy them, because we have no life.
When we left somewhere, everything was punctuated by schedules, departures on a whim were impossible.
In the afternoon, it had to be hydrated, then given its treatment, at 6 p.m. it had to be fed… And for eight years, I have the impression of never having been understood, heard.
You have always denounced the lack of regrets of Guy Lamorlette, the former manager of the SEB company which supplied Lidl stores. After his conviction on appeal in 2019 to three years in prison, two of which are firm, and to damages, has your anger subsided?
Admittedly, Guy Lamorlette was found guilty but he is not serving his prison sentence and is insolvent, so we have not been compensated.
So it is very hard for us to know it quietly at home.
He knew there was a bacterium in the meat and that additional checks were needed.
They were not made and the meat was still put on the market.
Because of a man who wanted to save money, families were broken up.
When I went to see him in his coffin, I felt his spirit enter me to free me from this anger
Priscilla Half
However, I believe my anger disappeared when Nolan died, a year after the trial.
However, at the time, I resented my son for abandoning me.
Without him, I was nothing.
When he died, I made him put a letter in his hand, in which I asked his forgiveness for not having protected him.
When I went to see him in his coffin, I had the impression that his spirit entered me to release me from this anger.
Before, I had this knot inside (she points to her sternum);
today, I no longer have it.
(1)
Nolan is finally resting
, by Priscilla Moittié with Caroline Andrieu, Ed.
Flamemarion, 18 euros.