The thermometer only showed 0 degrees in Créteil that night.
It was fatal to a 45-year-old homeless man, whose body temperature had dropped to 27°C.
The man had nevertheless called Samu 94 for help, in vain.
The Créteil public prosecutor's office has just opened an investigation into failure to provide assistance to a person in danger after the death of this homeless man.
“The investigations must make it possible to determine whether this offense can be blamed on anyone,” the prosecution is told.
Because that is the whole crux of this drama.
Has there been a failure in the relief chain?
Did Samu 94 miss a vital emergency?
Shortly before 4 a.m., on the night of Saturday January 20 to Sunday January 21, this homeless person contacted the 15th to ask for help.
The man, who admits to being drunk, is frozen with cold and is in great distress as he painfully shelters at a bus stop, near the Place de l'Eglise in Créteil.
Minutes pass and no emergency vehicle comes to meet him.
Around 4:20 a.m., a team of police officers approached the homeless man and discovered him in a state of severe hypothermia.
The forty-year-old, who is indeed drunk, is so cold that he can no longer move.
Vital organs affected by cold
The police decided to immediately put him warm in their vehicle and took him to the emergency room of Henri-Mondor hospital in Créteil.
The doctors note that his vital prognosis is in jeopardy.
In fact, his body temperature had dropped so much that he had reached the threshold of serious hypothermia, where the functioning of vital organs is affected, particularly that of the heart.
Following this intervention, the public prosecutor's office decided to open an investigation into the charge of failure to assist a person in danger.
He entrusted her to the Créteil police station.
The homeless man later died in hospital.
Also read “Severe cold plan”: what is this system activated by several prefectures?
This is the second homeless person to die in Val-de-Marne in a week.
In Kremlin-Bicêtre, Tuesday January 16, local residents found the lifeless body of Laurent, 63, under a porch near 7, avenue Eugène-Thomas.
The residents decided to pay tribute to him this Friday, January 26, by gathering at the site at 12:30 p.m.