Daughter Testifies in Doctor Péchier Trial, Recounts Mother’s Death Amid Poisoning Scandal
A French court is hearing testimony in the trial of Doctor Péchier, years after a series of unexplained cardiac arrests at the Polyclinique de Franche-Comté. While Nicole Deblock is unable to testify herself, having succumbed to complications following her initial cardiac event, her daughter, Mathilde, delivered a poignant account of her mother’s experience and the devastating impact of discovering the events were not accidental.
Mathilde Deblock’s voice trembled as she addressed the court, her emotions visibly overwhelming. She described fixating on the ceiling, desperately trying to contain her tears, her fingers twisting and untwisting in a gesture of anguish. Initially, like many families, they believed her mother’s cardiac arrest in 2009 was simply a tragic accident – “a matter of bad luck.”
However, that understanding shattered in 2017 when the family learned Nicole was among a group of patients deliberately poisoned. Mathilde, herself a cancérologue (oncologist), revealed her initial reaction was one of disbelief and concern for the medical professionals involved. “She wondered what they must have felt when they realized the poisoner was one of their own,” she recounted.
But at the heart of her testimony was a tribute to her mother – a dedicated community member and school principal in Besançon. Mathilde painted a picture of a vibrant woman whose light was extinguished by fear following the initial incident. “She was afraid it would happen again,” Mathilde explained, noting her mother had been fitted with a defibrillator and subsequently lost faith in everything, ultimately passing away in 2015. “They took my mother from me,” she stated, her voice choked with emotion.
Looking back at 2009, Mathilde recalled a time of joy for her mother, who had just learned she was expecting her third grandchild. In the immediate aftermath of the cardiac arrest, there was a strange sense of relief. “We even almost laughed, thinking that if it had to happen, a hospital operating room was the best place for it – with all the necessary equipment available.”
That sense of security was brutally shattered in 2017. “We realized it was the worst possible place, she had entered the wolf’s den,” Mathilde said. The revelation that a doctor was suspected of intentionally harming patients remains incomprehensible to her. “It’s appalling, it’s Machiavellian,” she lamented, struggling to find words to express the depth of her grief and outrage.
Mathilde, the oncologist, continues to grapple with the fact that a member of the medical profession is accused of such a heinous act, a betrayal of the trust placed in healers. Her testimony serves as a powerful reminder of the human cost of this alleged medical scandal and the enduring pain of those left behind.
