Lilian, a child of 2 years and 11 months, died in August 2014 after eating a Knacki sausage.
Knacki dangerous for toddlers? The Dax Criminal Court is re-examining the issue this Monday, June 20, in a new hearing enriched with an expert report, where the Herta company, prosecuted for manslaughter after the death of a two-year-old boy in 2014, suffocated by a piece of sausage.
Read alsoHerta on trial after child’s death
The Herta group is attacked by Florence and Vincent Lerbey, for “manslaughter by manifestly deliberate violation of an obligation of security or prudenceasked by the Consumer Code, after the death by suffocation of their son, Lilian, during their summer vacation 8 years ago.
Their 2-year-old and 11-month-old son died on August 11, 2014 at a campsite in Messanges, on the Landes coast, where the Bordeaux family was staying. That day, on returning from the beach with a couple of friends and their children, the mother prepares the meal for the little ones. On the menu, green beans and Knacki sausages that she cuts into thin slices.
After a few mouthfuls, Lilian takes his throat between his hands, he chokes. Florence Lerbey immediately alerts her husband and her friend, a nurse anesthetist. She tries to remove the piece from the baby’s throat, make him cough, practice the Heimlich maneuver and pat him on the back, keeping him flat on his stomach on his knees while the mother calls 15.
Dad also takes him by the feet, upside down. Nothing works. It’s cardiac arrest. The piece of sausage ended up being removed by the nurse using special pliers when the firefighters arrived. Lilian’s parents filed a complaint against Herta, asking for the symbolic euro, to prevent the tragedy from happening again.
“The legal and the emotional”
“The goal is to understand. It is not known whether this product is dangerous or not.“, explains to AFP Me Philippe Courtois, lawyer of the family, who puts in parallel the messages of recommendations of “cut (…) into very small pieces» affixed by the mark on the back of the packets to the «advertisements of Herta, (…) where you systematically see children with sausages cut in four or in two“.
He recalls that cases of choking have already affected a few other children. In 2018, the Paris Court of Appeal notably found Herta responsible for the disability of a 3-year-old girl who had been close to death with a “Knacki-ballsix years earlier, and compensated the parents, considering that the packaging did not warn enough of the potential danger.
At the end of the first hearing which took place in January 2021 at the Dax Criminal Court, the prosecution requested the release of Herta, considering that it was not necessary “confusing the legal and the emotional“. But the court had ordered an expertise to measure the spongy and sticky character of the Knacki or their swelling in contact with the children’s saliva. According to the expert consulted by AFP, “a set of technical impossibilitiesprevent us from concluding that there is a possible danger or, conversely, from ruling it out.
“If Herta had an expert who said ‘don’t worry it’s not dangerous’, believe that we would have had it a long time ago», attacks Me Courtois who asks «to go further in the questions put to the expert“, like wondering about “recommendations and advice» marked by Herta on the packaging. The company and its representative did not wish to speak before the hearing.
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