‘I’m combating for my kids. I misplaced all the things and I count on justice’: Mother-of-three who had each limb amputated after having an abortion describes each day struggling as she takes ‘bungling’ docs to court docket

A mother-of-three who had all four limbs amputated after doctors were slow to treat an infection contracted during an abortion has told of the horrors she endured as a result of alleged medical negligence as she called for ‘exemplary justice’ to be done.

Frenchwoman Priscilla Dray suffered septic shock within hours of leaving the Pellegrin University Hospital in Bordeaux following an elective abortion in 2011.

The former shopkeeper, then 36, claimed she had arrived for the procedure in ‘great shape’ but was ‘left to die’ when doctors refused her antibiotics for the infection, leading to septicaemia and necrosis before doctors had to amputate.

Speaking today, after doctors appeared before the Bordeaux Criminal Court, she told reporters: ‘I’m very stressed… This is something I’ve waited 14 years for, and psychologically it’s not easy… But I need this hearing to be able to have the answers to questions I’ve been asking for a long time.’

‘It’s unacceptable that this sort of thing can happen… I expect exemplary justice, a very, very strong ruling that reflects the extent of my suffering, the extent of what they took from me.

‘You have no choice but to go on because of your kids. I expect a lot for the extent of the suffering I’ve endured – that my husband and kids have endured – for 14 years,’ she concluded. 

Two hospital doctors appeared before the court yesterday, indicted for involuntary injuries with incapacity. Ms Dray is also suing the University Hospital as a legal entity. 

The mother of three claimed that her temperature soared to 39.6C hours after she underwent a voluntary abortion, prompting her to head to the university hospital emergency room on July 23, 2011. 

Her IUD was removed and a swab taken before an intern allegedly concluded she was likely suffering from endometriosis.

Under advice, Ms Dray requested antibiotics but was allegedly refused by the doctor on duty and sent home. 

The next day, on the morning of July 24, 2011, she went to see a GP in Cap Ferret complaining of severe fever and stomach pains.

The doctor suspected she had developed septicaemia and immediately referred her to the emergency department with a note to pass on to doctors. 

Within hours Ms Dray arrived back at the University Hospital in an ambulance, struggling to breathe and presenting with frozen hands and feet – a telltale sign of septic shock. 

But she was met with another intern who allegedly scoffed at her GP referral.

‘When I arrived at the emergency room, I was in agony. I had come up against a wall of indifference. I begged the intern to help me and to hospitalise me urgently,’ Ms Dray said.

‘When I mentioned the letter from the GP, (the intern) laughed and said ‘it’s not the doctors on duty who are going to decide for me’.’ 

Despite her condition, Ms Dray was forced to lie on a stretcher for hours. She was later administered antibiotics but her condition rapidly deteriorated and by 11:30pm she had been rushed to into intensive care. 

According to France3, her chance of survival was estimated at around five per cent during the night of July 24.

‘I trusted [them] and this is the state they put me in,’ she previously told French Media. 

‘They killed me… normally I would’ve died.’

Ms Dray miraculously survived her ordeal, but developed severe necrosis as a rampant case of streptococcus A, often referred to as ‘flesh-eating bacteria’, ravaged her limbs. 

By the end of August, doctors said her limbs could not be saved, and made the decision to amputate.

Ms Dray, who opted to have an abortion after falling pregnant just months after giving birth to her third child, said she was unable to see her baby for three months after her amputations were performed.

‘They took away all those moments of happiness,’ she said. ‘I don’t think there’s anything worse.’

In 2018, seven years after the tragedy, Ms Dray bravely shared her difficulties of adjusting to her condition in an interview with a French news outlet. 

‘Someone helps me every day at home,’ she told Sud Ouest.

‘For every daily task, you have to be able to adapt and organise 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.’

‘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.’

Ms Dray’s life has been blighted by a torrent of surgeries since the amputations, including more than 50 operations to implant and adjust metal rods in her shin bones to fix prosthetics.

She also underwent a costly hand transplant in the US at her own expense, requiring her to spend ‘many months’ back in hospital. 

This week she told French media she is recovering from organ rejection after undergoing a kidney transplant last year.  

Now, almost 14 years on from the moment tragedy befell Ms Dray, the Bordeaux Criminal Court is trying to establish the responsibilities of each party in the case and rule whether there were medical errors made in the course of her care.

The University Hospital has already been fined 300,000 euros for inclusion in future compensation.

Two medical practitioners from the gynaecological emergency department are also facing prosecution for involuntarily causing injury. 

One defendant claimed he had a telephone conversation with an intern who initially decided against prescribing Ms Dray antibiotics, according to a court report by Sud Ouest. He said the patient did not present with a fever and therefore the decision to send her home was justified. 

‘The tragedy of streptococcus A is the intermittence of the symptoms and the sudden nature of the progression. When we perform clinical examinations, they do not reveal a fever. We must take this into account,’ he reportedly told the court. 

‘If I had been informed of a feverish episode during the night, I would have asked for a return to the emergency room. I understand that this is difficult to hear, but I would have the same attitude today as I did fourteen years ago.’

A second defendant was present in the gynaecological emergency department the day Ms Dray returned to hospital with an urgent referral from her GP.

He claims he was unaware of his intern’s behaviour and also said he personally saw Ms Dray around 4pm, an hour before he allegedly referred her to an anaesthesiologist at 5pm. 

But when asked whether she saw the defendant in the emergency unit, Ms Dray responded with only one word: ‘Never.’

The trial continues.