The doctors who carried out an abortion which left a mother-of-three needing all four of her limbs amputated have walked free from court.
Frenchwoman Priscilla Draysuffered from septic shock after she went to the Pellegrin University Hospital in Bordeaux for an abortion in 2011.
She said that she had arrived in 'great shape' but was 'left to die' when doctors refused her antibiotics for the infection.
A month after the procedure, the former shopkeeper, then 36, suffered necrosis and needed to have both legs, her right forearm and her left hand amputated.
Now, 14 years later, two doctors, Martial Dekhili and François Vandenbossche, have been sentenced to six and nine months in prison, suspended, and fined £6,800 each for the severe injuries caused to Dray.
They will also have to pay her legal fees of £8,600. The Bordeaux University Hospital, however, was acquitted.
Victim Dray has been left distraught by the outcome, telling Le Parisien: 'Since I had the misfortune of meeting these two doctors at the Bordeaux University Hospital 14 years ago, my life has been turned upside down'.
Her lawyer,Coviaux, blasted the decision as a 'rare judgment in criminal law' but explained the sentences carried little weight as both doctors 'can continue to practice and start again'.
Priscilla Dray went into hospital to have an abortion in July 2011. By August, she had had four limbs removed, suffering from sepsis and necrosis
She has been left furious after two doctors who performed the procedure were handedsix and nine months prison sentences, suspended, and fined £6,800 each
Dray claimed that her temperature soared to 39.6C the day after the operation, prompting her to head to the university hospital emergency room.
Her IUD was removed and a swab taken before an intern allegedly concluded she was likely suffering from endometriosis.
Under advice, Dray requested antibiotics but was allegedly refused by the doctor on duty.'He handled everything over the phone and refused to give me antibiotics or keep me under observation,' she told the French newspaper.
She was, instead, sent home.
The next day, on July 24, 2011, she went to see a GP in Cap Ferret, who suspected septicemia.
She was then urgently referred back to Bordeaux University Hospital with a note to pass on to emergency doctors. 'Normally, this is an emergency where the patient should be sent to intensive care. I was left in the maternity ward all day,' she said.
The note was not forwarded by the hospital staff as Dray struggled to breathe and presented with frozen hands and feet, France3 reported in February.
The 'flesh-eating bacteria' had already started to attack her limbs, requiring amputation.
'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.'
According to France3, her chance of survival was estimated at around five per cent during the night of July 24, when she was rushed back into hospital.
In just over a week, she developed necrosis, linked to the septic shock, and was transferred to intensive care for severe burns.
By the end of August they made the difficult decision to amputate.
The criminal court accused Dr. Vandenbossche, the head of the clinic on call that evening, of not having taken appropriate urgent action to examine her, of not checking on his inexperienced intern, and of not ensuring that the anesthesiologist to whom he had finally referred the patient was available, French newspaper Sud-Ouest reported.
Dray miraculously survived her ordeal, but developed severe necrosis as 'flesh-eating bacteria' ravaged her limbs
A picture taken on January 25, 2020 shows a general view of the Pellegrin university hospital (CHU) in Bordeaux
Dray, who had chosen to have an abortion after only recently having her third-born child, revealed that she was unable to see her newborn for three months after the surgery.
'They took away all those moments of happiness,' she said. 'I don't think there's anything worse.'
At the time, her two children were aged seven and 10, and her baby was five-months- old. 'I couldn't get up at night and hold him when he cried. It was just awful,' she told Le Parisien.
The hospital would ultimately be fined £260,000 over the case, and three people were indicted, Femme Actuelle reported in 2023.
A gynecologist was indicted for not having immediately prescribed antibiotics.
Drayhas needed more than 50 operations since to implant metal rods in her shin bones to fix prosthetics. She has undergone a total of 92 operations and surgeries with the most recent a kidney transplant last year after anti-rejectionmedications gradually damaged her organs.
The mother also underwent a costly doule-hand transplant in the US at her own expense, requiring her to spend 'many months' back in hospital, France3 reported.
'But transplanted hands aren't hands that move well, and I was unable to give my child insulin injections,' she said.
Still, Dray has questions about what happened to her in those crucial moments in July 2011.
'To this day, I still don't understand why I was left to die in that maternity ward,' she told Pourquoi Docteur in 2017.
The doctors' lawyers, who had requested their clients' acquittal, can still appeal.
Sepsis is a life-threatening infection that can be difficult to spot in some patients, per the NHS.
It happens when the immune system reacts aggressively to an infection and starts to damage the body's own tissues and organs.
Without proper treatment, it can lead to organ failure, tissue damage and death.
