But what happened in Limoges? An investigation was opened following the fire which broke out during the night from Friday to Saturday within the University Hospital of the Haute-Vienne prefecture, killing at least one person, the prosecutor’s office announced on Sunday.
“A judicial investigation has been opened into charges of involuntary manslaughter, involuntary damage to the property of others by clearly deliberate violation of a particular obligation of safety or prudence (…) causing death and involuntary damage (…)”, said Limoges public prosecutor Baptiste Porcher in a press release.
A fire broke out on the second floor
The investigation was entrusted to the territorial direction of the judicial police and the departmental security of Limoges. Saturday around 2:30 a.m., a fire was detected on the second floor of the Dupuytren University Hospital, in a room in the digestive surgery department.
“Three minutes after the alarm was triggered, the hospital’s fire safety personnel intervened and evacuated the patient from the room in which the fire was detected,” continues the magistrate, specifying that this patient was then deceased.
An undetermined origin “at this stage”
A second person, “aged 89, present in the wing and who was undergoing end-of-life treatment”, also lost his life. Autopsies will take place soon “in particular in order to verify the possible causality between the death of the second victim and the fire”, specifies Baptiste Porcher.
Two other patients in the wing who had inhaled smoke during the disaster left the emergency department where they had been admitted. The twenty patients from the department affected by the fire had been transferred to other areas of the hospital. The origin of the disaster “remains undetermined at this stage”. “Findings and technical examinations are planned as soon as possible,” adds the prosecution.