Trial of November 13: intervened in Bataclan, a doctor of the RAID tells “the urgency to get out of this hell” – BFMTV

For this 35th day of hearing, doctors from the RAID and the BRI are heard. They are the first to intervene at the Bataclan to extract the wounded and direct the most seriously affected to hospital urgently.

“It’s a night that will mark me for life.” By its complexity, its physical and psychological intensity, but also by its “horror”, the intervention at Bataclan, on November 13, 2015, will remain forever engraved in the memory of Doctor Matthieu Langlois, doctor of the RAID, the unit of elite national police.

It is 9:50 p.m. when his beeper sounds the alert, he said this Thursday before the specially composed Assize Court. At that precise moment, he knew he was going to intervene at the scene of a terrorist attack, but he did not yet know the extent of it. Since joining the RAID in 2008, Dr Langlois has been prepared to act on mass killings, he was notably part of the team dispatched after the attack led by Mohamed Merah in Toulouse in 2012.

Chaos

Two pairs of RAID doctors were formed: one was sent to the Bataclan, the other to the Parisian terraces, two of the places struck by the terrorists that evening. Matthieu Langlois arrives around 11:00 p.m. in his area of ​​intervention, the assault on the concert hall has not yet been launched.

“I realize that the reality is going to be much harsher than usual. We see bodies on the sidewalk. A policeman tells us: ‘Get out of the way, it’s shooting’. The further we advance towards the entrance, the more the situation of chaos is obvious, “he reports on this 35th day of the hearing.

Matthieu Langlois and his teammate hardly enter the Bataclan, the objective is to reach the pit, on the ground floor, knowing that two terrorists are upstairs, that a third is perhaps hidden and that ‘there is potentially a parcel bomb in the room.

“Our role is to save under threat. Quickly extract the wounded, prioritizing according to the severity of the lesions, so that they are taken to hospital as quickly as possible. The risk to our lives is real but we must control the astonishment to act, “he explains.

Stress and bewilderment

Trained to keep a cool head, the pair assesses the situation: “There are about 200 people, dead and injured, in this area. I had never done, never seen that”. Those who were able to leave the concert hall were extracted by the BAC team, first responder. “As all the people who could move left, I knew that we had to go and get the others to put them to safety otherwise, with their type of injuries, it would be too late. We couldn’t wait.”

The doctor sees feet, arms torn off … “The projectiles have made several dramatic lesions on people”, he said without wanting to expand further on these painful details.

For about 40 minutes, the two RAID pairs struggle to get the wounded out of the pit. “Then, we learn that more than 80 people are still hidden in the floors. We must think about how to evacuate them, knowing that it is out of the question to bring them back through the interior of the Bataclan”. Dr. Langlois then ordered four scales.

“Fortunately, there were more minor injuries. So we made lines of victims by bringing down the most affected first. There was an urgent need to get out of this hell. But the victims were in such a state of stress and stress. amazed, that they did not want to descend. We had to find the right words to reassure them, sometimes with a little humor to give them the courage to step over the balcony. It had to go quickly, with all the kindness essential “, explains the doctor of the special unit.

“Absolutely unique” rescue

Around midnight, the assault was given by the police of the RAID and the BRI. Once the operation was completed, “we were able to bring in the emergency services because it was felt that the area was a little more secure than before,” said in turn Dr. Denis Safran, doctor of the BRI. Like his colleague Matthieu Langlois, he participated in the rapid evacuation of the wounded before the assault.

“After that, I went upstairs, first to the BRI to see if any officers had been injured during the assault. Luckily, only one man had been hit in the hand but he had already been evacuated so I didn’t have to take care of him. I spent the rest of the evening exploring the Bataclan – which is a complex building with many nooks and crannies – and I went looking for other injured people. I looked at them, examined them, and I organized their exit “, he declared at the bar.

It is only around 2:00 am that this “absolutely unique” rescue of its kind ends, while in the hospitals of the Paris region, the nursing staff are still hard at work to rescue the people who have been extracted. different places of attack. From 10:30 p.m., the director of the Public Assistance Hospitals of Paris (AP-HP) launched the “White Plan”.

“It was the first time that it was set up on the whole of the public assistance”, underlines at the bar, Martin Hirsch, director of the AP-HP.

That evening, “all the hospitals were able to be mobilized. 17 structures received 364 wounded, including about a hundred in absolute urgency. We counted 4 deaths and 188 surgeries. The wounded were similar to war wounded. , affected by weapons of war, but surgery and medicine were practiced with the same quality and the same requirements as in usual circumstances “, he specified about this night which” will mark him for life ” .