Killer sausage in France, Herta before the judges

Is the tongue dangerous for small children? The Dax Criminal Court reconsidered the issue on Monday, in a new investigation enriched with an expert report, comparing Herta, which was prosecuted for homicide, to the death in 2014 after the death of a two-year-old boy who suffocated. Sausage is a rope.

After their son Lillian suffocated to death during an 8-year summer vacation, the Herta group was attacked by Florence and Vincent Lerbe for committing “arson by blatantly violating the duty of protection or sanity” imposed by the Consumer Code. Before. Their 2-year-old and 11-month-old son died on August 11, 2014 at a camp in Mesanchs on Landus Beach, where the Bordeaux family was staying.

That day, when she returns from the beach with a couple of friends and their children, the mother prepares food for the little ones. On the menu, she chopped green beans and nakki sausage into thin slices. After a few mouthfuls, Lillian cleared her throat between her hands and she gasped. Florence Lerbe immediately alerts her husband and her friend the nurse anesthesiologist. Removing the piece from the child’s throat, coughing, Heimlich practiced the maneuver, and when the mother called 15, she put her knees flat on his stomach and patted his back.

Dad also holds him upside down. Nothing works. It’s a heart attack. When firefighters arrived, the sausage piece was removed by a nurse using a special pliers. Lillian’s parents filed a complaint against Herta, asking for the index euro to prevent the tragedy from happening again.

“The goal is to understand. We do not know whether this product is dangerous or not,” he explains to AFP Me Philippe Courtois, a family lawyer who parallels the messages of the recommendations for “cutting into very small pieces (…)”. On the back of the packages were “Herta’s ads, (…) you see children sausages cut into four or two in order”. He recalled that cases of suffocation had already affected some children.

In 2018, the Paris Court of Appeals found that Herta was responsible for the disability of a 3-year-old girl who was close to death by “knuckle ball” six years ago, and awarded compensation to her parents for not having the packaging. To give adequate warning about the potential danger.

At the conclusion of the first hearing in the Dax Criminal Court in January 2021, the prosecution demanded that Herta be released, as it was not necessary to “confuse law and order.” The court, however, ordered that the fluffy and sticky nature of the tongue or that of an expert in measuring their swelling with children’s saliva be obtained. According to an expert consulted by AFP, the “set of technical possibilities” prevents us from denying that there is a potential risk or vice versa.

“If Herta had an expert who would say, ‘Don’t worry, it’s not dangerous,’ we would have gotten to him a long time ago,” Mr Cordois asks, furthering the questions asked by “the expert.” Did not want to speak before the trial.