Exempted from sporting activity due to a heart problem, the 13-year-old young man had been ordered by his PE teacher to participate in a race in the cold which was fatal to him.
Parents in search of answers and justice. On December 1, 2020, Baptiste, a teenager who was about to celebrate his 13th birthday, died following a heart attack which occurred during a PE course at his college in Bons-en-Chablais, in Haute-Savoie. Yet exempted from sport due to a heart problem detected very early in his childhood, he had been ordered by his teacher to still participate in a running session.
“I arrived and I understood what had happened,” she told BFMTV. “My son was lying on the ground, and I knew he was already dead.”
“I made it run gradually”
Shortly after Baptiste’s death, a judicial investigation “on the count of manslaughter by the manifestly deliberate violation of a particular obligation of caution or security imposed by law or regulations” had been opened by the Thonon-les prosecution. -Baths.
But more than two years after the tragedy, Baptiste’s parents are demanding sanctions against the professor, who has since been replaced in an administrative position.
“The sports teacher is the first person I saw when I arrived at the football stadium. I told him ‘but he was exempted, he is not allowed to run’. And he answered me ‘ I made it run gradually.'”
Transported by helicopter to the Geneva hospital, Baptiste died the next day, despite an operation. “Was he afraid of this very tall and very authoritarian sports teacher? I have my doubts”, wonders Mélanie Jacques.
“The people who made these choices, who decided to force him to run, must be punished,” she insists.
A call for a change of rules
For his part, Baptiste’s father, Xavier Ledoux, since separated from the teenager’s mother, also wonders about the merits of his son’s participation in a sports session, moreover in weather conditions. extremely difficult.
“It’s not normal. Being outside in the middle of winter, with temperatures of 2°C… There should be new regulations for children exempted all year round, in any case not to attend gym class “, he says.
In a previous interview with ParisianBaptiste’s parents had pointed out their loneliness in this ordeal, saying they were “completely abandoned by National Education and justice.”
