It might sound like a mundane scene from everyday life if it hadn't had such dramatic consequences. On July 11, 2016, Faustine, who will be 2 years old, is in the grip of an ugly cough which prevents her from eating. Originally from Isère, the parents went to the emergency department of the Woman-Mother-Child hospital (HFME) in Bron (Rhône) and came out reassured. Just bronchitis, say the doctors. Nothing unusual at this age.
Two days later, when they come back to the hospital emergency room, the worst is on the way. We discover the lithium battery swallowed by Faustine. The object began to burn in the girl's body.
A year of suffering and 27 operations later, the little girl died with her parents on July 15, 2017. She was going to be 3 years old. Two and a half years later, the family is heard this Wednesday by the investigating judge in charge of the file. According to our information, he should confirm to them what the parents have predicted for almost three years: their daughter would have been the victim of a medical error.
A family complaint
A much rarer scene, at the end of 2019. Renowned doctors from the Hospices Civils de Lyon (Rhône), supervisory authority of the HFME, are heard by the gendarmes of the Lyon research section. The two practitioners are heard as part of a complaint filed in March 2018 by the family of Faustine Aberkane and which has experienced rapid progress in recent weeks.
In front of the investigators, the doctors keep a low profile, and half-acknowledge an error. It must be said that the gendarmes of the research section (SR) put before their eyes an expert report to say the least overwhelming. A relentless analysis, rare in the hushed environment of doctors, generally measured and tempered when it comes to judging colleagues. Without filter, the radiologist Christian Fortel and the anesthesiologist Patrice Bodenan, signatories of this expert report rendered on April 29, 2019, denounce a "wrong diagnosis", a behavior "incomprehensible". Their conclusion is final and denounces "the accumulation of several medical faults".
Return to the emergency room of Bron, July 11, 2016. For several hours, Faustine refuses to eat, struggles to drink and breathe. In the emergency room of the HFME, according to a report that we have been able to consult, the doctor who examines the little girl concludes with "nasopharyngitis" and "bronchial congestion". A radio is produced and shows, at Faustine's neck, a large circular white spot. Nothing to report for doctors.
"Serious and incomprehensible behavior by radiologists"
A "misdiagnosis of radiologist doctors who interpret the foreign body without making a cliché, saying they believed they were in the presence of a medal", explain the doctors who sign the expert report. They even denounce a “serious and incomprehensible behavior of radiologists” and assure that it was necessary “to call the internal of the emergencies and to redo radios face-profile. "
Conversely, the little girl is released by the doctors and goes home. Again, the experts are severe and deplore that the patient was "classified 4 when it is a major emergency" and that her discharge was "not justified by the symptoms present. An error that will precipitate Faustine's hell.
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Until her return to the emergency room on July 13, Faustine suffered and lived with a small flat battery filled with lithium stuck in her throat. The poison spreads throughout the girl's body and causes irreparable damage. Doctors who remove the battery during the day notice an "eso-tracheal fistula". Clearly, the little girl's esophagus was pierced by lithium.
Multiple operations
For a year, surgeons and operations will follow one another in an attempt to save the child, who died on July 15, 2017 from a "digestive hemorrhage due to the corrosiveness of the lithium battery", write the experts. Cautious, the same consider it "difficult to assert that the clinical course would have been 100% different if the ablation of the battery had been performed on July 11 instead of July 13". The fall in their relationship, it leaves much less room for doubt and denounces an "accumulation of several medical faults" which delayed the essential care for the survival of the girl by 48 hours ...
A failure that investigators from the SR de Lyon and the justice system are still trying to understand. "There are undoubtedly explanations, assures a good connoisseur of the file. The question of congestion in the emergency room or the fatigue of doctors inevitably arises. The latter could be heard by the examining magistrate in the coming months.
Contacted, Me Maxence Pascal, the lawyer for the Aberkane family did not wish to speak before the hearing of the day. Solicited, the Civil Hospices of Lyon did not follow up.
