A dead 3-year-old child suffocated by a Knacki: the terrible story of Lilian
It’s a chilling story: that of Lilian, a little boy of two years and 11 months who, after eating a Knacki, died suffocated on the evening of August 11, 2014. In his edition of Tuesday, June 21, 2022, Le Parisien reviews the circumstances of the drama, while the release was requested against Herta during the last hearing before the correctional court of Dax, in the Landes. As our colleagues pointed out, the company is being prosecuted for manslaughter. So what happened tonight, August 11, 2014? At the time of the tragedy, the little boy was not alone. His parents, Florence and Vincent were present, as well as their five-year-old daughter Anaïs. The family enjoyed a holiday in a campsite in Messanges, in Les Landes. Lilian “got up from the table with his hands down his throat when he had just eaten Knacki sausage cut into pieces”, relayed Le Parisien according to the account given by the president during the hearing. A nurse-anesthetist friend present that evening tried to save him, practicing “Heimlich’s maneuver, Moffenson’s maneuver”, but also “techniques to disrupt the airways during a ‘false route’ of food”, our colleagues continued. Nothing worked. The child’s face turned blue and blood came out of his mouth. His death was declared at 10:25 p.m.
Before Lilian, three other children died of choking while eating a Knacki
The court in Dax had then ordered an expert opinion, in particular to investigate the causes of the suffocation. “The measurement of the diameter of the sausage and its possibly spongy nature, which can swell on contact with saliva, could not be determined ‘in the absence of reliable physical methodology’,” the chair said at the hearing. The lawyer of the family, Mr. Courtois, for his part deplored that tests of this type “are not carried out internally by the company Herta”, he who, with the children’s relatives, expected “much” of this expertise. He also recalled that “the false road is the first cause of accidental death in small children […] Pieces of 1 to 2 mm but of the same circumference as the sausage can be dangerous”. The prosecutor pleaded for release. As for the deliberation, it will be rendered on July 11, 2022. Note that Lilian is not the only child to have died suffocated after eating a Knacki. “Three other children under the age of 4 lost their lives in 1993, 2007 and 2012,” Le Parisien said.
