Lyon (AFP)

Rodolphe Lelaidier is a young resuscitator at the Édouard Herriot hospital in Lyon. On the front line facing the coronavirus. Each evening, the same ritual: an old rum or an herbal tea and it tells the daily life of its service.

It all started with a message posted on social networks at the start of the confinement. "Frankly, it is not often that we are scared when we are used to dealing with patients who have merged with the bumper opposite." But there, the fear was there.

Rodolphe then simply asked people on Facebook to stay at home on the mode "you are better at home than with us". And his post was shared more than 95,000 times on the different pages where he ended up.

No doubt galvanized by this audience success, but also because he "had things to say", he continued. Until opening a *.

- Inextinguishable thirst -

He recounts his life there as "MAR: Doctor-Anesthesiologist-Resuscitator". On his guard days, "rancid piece of butter on a piece of stale bread". On his days off, he talks about the mountains, about the Meije massif which he should have done just before. Before the virus, this "140 nanometer thing", comes into our lives.

He describes the life of his service - his "village". But also at night, mechanical ventilation, ethics committees where an outside doctor comes to decide what further care to give or not to a patient.

We feel "thirst, pain, fear of dying, lack of intimacy and contact with loved ones". Small lemon sticks to pass for a moment the feeling of unquenchable thirst of intubated patients.

He explains his habits: opening the shutters wide in the rooms or turning off any unnecessary machine. Details, but which allow a better understanding of the day of the night.

In the flood of stories about this crisis, this one "makes this world so technical palpitate of humanity", answers Corinne on Facebook. And gives "the impression of reading the experience of one of our patients" adds Nora, a caregiver in her department.

Most of his fans are women. He agrees.

- "loss of comfort" -

Rodolphe is 30 years old. Guy of 1m86 with blue-green eyes, he wears a cap in blue disposable fabric with his first name written on it. Patients only see his eyes. The wave arrived here ten days after the confinement began.

The most trying was the week before. Prepare everything and train a hundred people on a mannequin. Because Covid-19 patients arriving on "sheave" must be placed on artificial respiration extremely quickly, without being able to get too close to a very contagious patient with a wide open mouth.

"Here, there was no loss of chance and we did not have to make impossible choices," he told AFP. "But we lost in comfort of life".

Non-Covid patients were placed in open spaces. "We are afraid of having generated trauma in them and the most traumatized, we know that we do not see them again".

So one evening, he wrote to ask for earplugs, ear muffs, blackout masks. Immediate mobilization of Internet users.

Why write all this? Confined, it can no longer evacuate through sport. "So, I write. I put a little fiction and it allows me to distance myself". Rodolphe prefers to keep the best of the situation, collective intelligence. "I don't have the energy to stop at negative things."

"I'm not blind, though." His precarious status, his fear of a "burn-out" if he continues like this. About science, "a bit lost at the moment", he speaks readily.

He just wants to leave a trace of this historic moment. The "duty of memory" resonates in him. He would like to be published.

Now he is no longer "scared"; he's just "worried". Will they last? Because the resuscitators are not done with the Covid-19. And the other patients, the road accident victims, the victims of brawls will soon return ...

* https: //leconfiblog.jimdofree.com/

© 2020 AFP