Nadine Oliveira was transferred to intensive care on Saturday "after a heart attack", according to her lawyer Maître Jean Codognés at France Bleu Roussillon.
The school bus driver has been on trial since Monday in Marseille for the fatal collision with a train in 2017 in Millas (Pyrénées-Orientales) which claimed the lives of six schoolchildren and injured seventeen others.
Nadine Oliveira was allegedly a victim of "tako-tsubo syndrome", also called broken heart syndrome, which occurs after intense physical or psychological stress, says her lawyer.
The driver "must pass a third scanner on Monday at the North Hospital of Marseille", which compromises her presence in court for the second week of hearing.
Evacuated by firefighters
Last Thursday, the president had to suspend the hearing while the bus driver was again questioned about the accident.
Pressed with questions by the lawyers for the civil parties, she broke down nervously.
Taken by a crisis of irrepressible sobs, she had been evacuated by the firefighters.
Maître Jean Codognés denounces in this interview “the relentlessness” of the lawyers of the civil parties, “who engage in a competition to associate their name with forced confessions: it is torture worthy of the Middle Ages”.
For their part, the lawyers for the civil parties deny engaging in “gratuitous harassment” on the defendant.
“We ask him the questions that we have to ask him,” said Maître Philippe Ayral, adding: “We can understand that Madame Oliveira, after four days, is in difficulty to accept this idea.”