"I shouldn't have listened to the emergency services": the mother of Esteban, a young man who died despite several calls to the emergency services, testifies

"I think there will always be guilt." More than six months after the death of her 24-year-old son, after several unsuccessful calls to the emergency services , Dorothée explained on Monday, August 25, to BFMTV that she wanted to "go all the way" to get answers.

Esteban Vermeersch, 24, died on January 30, 48 hours after making his first call to the emergency services at the 15 emergency center in Le Mans, Sarthe. He was suffocating and told them he could only breathe halfway and was suffering from chest pain.

The emergency service concluded that it was a muscular problem, so no help was sent. The same thing happened the next day, after a very trying night, and a second call from his mother who "had never seen him like that."

Esteban's mother today explained to BFMTV the "guilt" that has been eating away at her and her two 20-year-old daughters ever since. "We blame ourselves for not having acted sooner," she explains.

"The reason why the emergency services didn't come was because I hadn't said enough, because I hadn't been clear enough," she told BFMTV, alongside Esteban's sister, who was also present on the day of the tragedy.

Shortly after the second emergency call, his mother tried to take him to the emergency room, but she never made it. "As he left the house, he collapsed and went into cardiac arrest," she says. Esteban stopped breathing. His mother then began CPR before finally being taken over by the firefighters. After 50 minutes, the young man was transferred to the Le Mans hospital. He underwent surgery, but to no avail. He died the next day.

"I asked for the medical report. I thought I hadn't done the CPR properly," Dorothée wonders. "From the first call, I shouldn't have listened to the emergency services, I should have listened to myself and managed to get him to the emergency room," she laments.

Now, she wants to "sound the alarm" because "this kind of thing shouldn't be happening." "I know they're short on staff, that the budgets aren't the same, but we're still talking about life," Esteban's mother emphasizes.

The family wants to file a complaint for involuntary manslaughter against the Le Mans Hospital Center, which has not responded to various attempts at judicial mediation. "We're going to push to the limit to make them acknowledge their mistakes. The hospital has never said, 'Yes, we made mistakes,' and that hurts," Dorothée assures. "I don't think we can move forward until this is acknowledged."