The Prosecutor of the French Republic announced this Thursday that it will open an investigation after the death this week of a 19-year-old student, victim of a heart attack while taking a high school exam at an institute in Lille, in the north of the country.
The young man, previously suffering from a serious heart problem, fell suddenly from his chair on Tuesday afternoon suffering a cardiac arrest. The emergency services assisted him in the classroom and then transferred him to a nearby hospital. However, he passed away five hours later.
According to local press such as La Voix du Nord, the tragedy caused a stir at Gaston Berger High School. Some of the students denounced the “lack of response” from the adults in the room, of not having immediately assisted Nadir, the victim, and of having denied that the students could help him. Specifically, according to the testimonies, those who would have remained alone on the floor would have spent about twenty minutes, without receiving any cardiac massage during that time.
The Minister of Education, Pap Ndiaye, announced the start of the administrative investigation to clarify “the conditions of attention” to Nadir “in the management of this crisis situation in the facilities.” Ndiaye, who spoke to the student’s family last Wednesday, will travel to the secondary school on March 27.