“I feel like a patchwork, sewn up everywhere”: at the November 13th trial, the words of Gaëlle, “broken mouth” of Bataclan – Le Monde

A tall, elegant woman arrives at the bar, Thursday, October 7, takes off her mask, and reveals her patched up face. Her white short-sleeved blouse reveals four imposing scars on her left arm. Much has been said about the damage from a Kalashnikov bullet since the start of the trial. This time we see them.

For twenty minutes, in a small voice slightly distorted by her mouth which is also, Gaëlle, 40, reads a trying text, the story of the physical after-effects and the pangs of endless reconstruction. Philippe Lançon and his Flap are not far away. We will remember this moment of hearing.

Gaëlle first pays tribute to Mathieu, her companion at the time, who died alongside her at the Bataclan. Then she unfolds the evening, the arrival at the concert, the first beer, the first shots, the crowd movement, and the two hours spent on the bloody ground of the Bataclan.

Verbatim. “I realized that I had been seriously injured trying to remove the shoe of a person above me from my face. As I tried to push it aside, I found that my cheek was completely detached from the left side of my face and was hanging down my neck. My right hand dug inside my mouth to pull out the jagged teeth, so I wouldn’t swallow them, as it made me cough and might attract the attention of a terrorist. I also realized that the large white and red lump standing on my stomach was actually the bone in my left arm, sticking out perpendicular. (…)

I was taken from the Bataclan, then the SAMU took charge of me. The journey to the hospital seemed endless to me. Once I arrived at the Pitié-Salpêtrière, I remember a long parade of corridors and people who, crossing my stretcher, exclaimed ” oh my God ! “. I was operated on twice that night. I would learn later that the young surgeon who stabilized my arm, and who decided to refer me as a priority to another surgical team to save my face, was a childhood friend. He hadn’t seen me for fifteen years, he didn’t recognize me.

The awakening in intensive care was terrible. I no longer had any benchmarks other than the beep of the machines that kept me alive. A doctor asked me if I could give him a phone number by pressing my hand on his, in an attempt to reach my relatives. I managed to find my father’s cell phone number by number. It was Saturday evening, my family had been looking for me for more than twenty-four hours, I had not been identified.

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