The former director of the Medico-Legal Institute told Wednesday how his services adapted to the exceptional influx of body. This unprecedented situation explains, according to him, certain organ samples taken for without apparent reason that families of victims accuse him.
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Gérald Fourhomme was the director of the Nice Medico-Legal Institute (IML) when the July 14, 2016 attack occurred. On the morning of the 15th, his morgue had become “a war scene”, of which he kept “a vision that cannot be removed from his mind”: “All these black lined up shrouds … it’s a scene that seems unreal . “
Wednesday, September 14, this retirement forensic player came to explain to the Assize Court specially composed of Paris how his services had adapted to accommodate, examine, identify, repair and return families to the mutilated bodies arrived in His IML, which had not been designed to house 84 corpses at once – two other victims died a few days later. “Almost all the refrigerated spaces of the morgue were already occupied, he remembers. We had to order additional spaces, which were installed in the medical school parking.”
Ten people usually worked at IML. “We were now a hundred”, including 25 forensic doctors from all over France, volunteer secretaries to typed forensic reports – “some had never seen a deceased or damaged bodies, and had to be replaced at the end of A few hours, completely traumatized ” -, or medical students who accepted an” thankless role “: cleaning the corpses examination rooms, and stretching these to the fridges.
identify the bodies , determine the causes of death, and “restore”
It was necessary to “organize this immense chaos”, in order to be able to respect the calendar fixed by the former prosecutor of Paris François Molins: the deceased had to be returned to their loved ones no later than July 19. Less than five days to identify the bodies, determine the causes of death, and “restore” – major difficulty – before presenting them to families.
“The majority of the bodies were damaged, some severely, recalls Gérald Quatrehomme. For some deceased, it was unfortunately impossible to obtain a restoration of the face and satisfactory hands.” It was therefore decided that the presentation would be behind glass. “With a certain lighting, a certain distance and a certain angle of presentation, it was possible for us to present certain very damaged bodies.” We perceive a rare point of emotion in the voice of the witness, which is also clinical in its deposition. “There were difficult cases. I remember a mother who did not recognize her child when she collected herself.”
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