A mum claims she was “massacred” and “left to die” after developing septic shock from an abortion and had to have all four limbs amputated.
Priscilla Dray reportedly said she arrived in “great shape” for the abortion in 2011 at the Pellegrin University Hospital in Bordeaux, and that doctors refused to give her antibiotics following an infection.
The French woman, who was 36 at the time, developed necrosis a month after the operation and needed to have both legs, as well as her right forearm and left hand amputated. Two doctors appeared at a Bordeaux court today over charges of causing involuntary injuries with incapacity.
Ms Dray has told French media how her temperature rose to 39.6C following the abortion with an intern believing that she had endometriosis. While Ms Dray asked for antibiotics, she was refused by a doctor and sent home. She later claimed she was “massacred” as her limbs were amputated due to sepsis.
The next day after being sent home, on July 24, 2022, she went to her GP in Cap Ferret who believed that she may have septicaemia, and she was rushed back to the hospital. She was given a note by the GP to give to doctors at the hospital but it is alleged that this was not passed on by hospital staff as Ms Dray struggled to breathe.
The sepsis with ‘flesh eating bacteria’ was eating into her limbs and required amputations. “I trusted [them] and this is the state they put me in,” she said on the M6 programme Zone Interdite. “They killed me, and normally I should have died.”
Her chance of survival was estimated at only 5% on July 24, when she was taken back into hospital, according to France3. She went on to develop necrosis, linked to the septic shock, and was transferred to intensive care for severe burns. By the end of August they made the decision to amputate.
“To this day, I still don’t understand why I was left to die in that maternity ward,” she told Pourquoi Docteur in 2017. Ms Dray decided to have the abortion shortly after the birth of her third child and could not see the baby for three months. The hospital went on to be fined 300,000 euros over the case, and three people were indicted, Femme Actuelle reported in 2023. A gynaecologist was indicted for not having given antibiotics right at the start.
In 2018, Ms Dray told of the horror which she endured. “Someone helps me every day at home,” she told Sud Ouest. “For every daily task, you have to be able to adapt and organize yourself. The hardest part is to come to terms with it and tell yourself that there are things you can no longer do yourself. It’s hard.”
She continued: “It’s my three children who give me this energy she said, asked how she overcomes the challenges of daily life. Without them, I wouldn’t have had the same strength. And I still live with the hope of repairing myself. I’m dependent on progress in medicine and technology.”
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