“It’s July 29, 2016. The weather is very nice, I’ve been on vacation for a week, at home in Châtellerault [Vienne]. I’m resting after a busy year. That afternoon I decided to change bakeries. Instead of going to the closest one, I opt for the one in the city center, on Rue Colbert.

I have always had a great connection to bread. My parents were farmers and I love everything to do with the harvest; I visited mills, I’m interested in baking bread. I am also very sensitive to smells. On this day, near the bakery, you can smell the hot baguettes that the apprentices bring from the back room, but also the smell of tuff from the old streets of the city center.

I park my bike and don’t think it’s appropriate to put the lock on. It’s only a few minutes. I’m getting ready to go to the bakery. Suddenly short circuit. No pain. More awareness. Absolute absence.

Then I have a vague memory of sitting in an ambulance surrounded by firefighters. One of them asks me what my name is, I answer. Then I dive back in.

I wake up in the intensive care unit of Poitiers University Hospital in a daze. There are three or four nurses assisting me. As soon as I lift my arm, I see my heart rate increase on the monitor. The doctors explained to me that I had “ventricular fibrillation,” which is also called “sudden death.” In short, cardiac arrest. They tell me that I collapsed on the corner of the bakery and that I was very lucky. An incredible opportunity. In France, the survival rate for cardiac arrest that occurs outside of hospital is 10%. When I fell, the surgeon continues, the baker saw me and rushed over to give me a heart massage while his wife called SAMU. He learned first aid during an internship at Auchan. That saved me.

“You were completely blue”

Once I got to the hospital, I was put in an induced coma for two days while the doctors ran all sorts of tests on me. They found nothing except a little cholesterol, but it was in no way likely to cause cardiac arrest. On this occasion I learned that one can suffer an electrical failure of the heart. In rare cases, the cause of this error cannot be found. That was my case. I was never afraid of having a heart problem; to the lungs, yes, because I was a heavy smoker, but I had never thought about the heart.

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