TERRORIST ATTACKS: ER IN THE FRONT LINE | France 3 | Documentaires

They refuse to see themselves as heroes, as they have so often been portrayed since the night of the attacks on November 13 2015. And yet, doctors, nurses, carers, emergency service workers, firefighters, both professional and volunteer, worked for hours on end that night to save as many lives as they could. However, the majority of them were not psychologically prepared to face the wounds of war. What did they live through that night? What did they feel as they tended the war wounded, most of whom were sometimes the same age and of the same life style as themselves? These men and women overcame the vision of these mutilated bodies by keeping their composure as they operated and managed the emotional outpouring of distraught families. And since that night, the achievements, but also the hurt and scars of those who bandaged the wounds, remain indelible. They are not supermen” and they have agreed to talk about their courage and also about their anguish and their weaknesses. Cameras were set up in four Paris hospitals: Saint Antoine and Saint Louis, close to the shootings, were the first to receive the wounded that night the Pitié Salpêtrière hospital received some fifty wounded in a very serious condition. The Begin military hospital in Saint Mandé, in the Val-de-Marne, where the medical staff have been trained over many years in the medicine of war. Until now, these men and women have never spoken to the media of the lasting effects that that evening left upon them. They agreed to tell us about the before and the after, how their daily lives were “blown apart”.”