Interview by Benjamin Peter, edited by Gauthier Delomez 7:48 p.m., February 23, 2023
The students and staff of the Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin private high school in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, are still in shock the day after the death of a Spanish teacher, stabbed in class.
On site, a medico-psychological emergency cell was opened.
A welcome but no lessons this Thursday for the students of the Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin high school in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, the day after the tragedy.
On Wednesday, a 16-year-old student probably stabbed his Spanish teacher at the start of class, before being arrested by the police.
A shock for the students, some of whom met by Europe 1 said they did not realize what had happened.
It is to offer them the opportunity to express their emotions or their fears that a medico-psychological emergency unit has been opened.
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The latter is made up of ten specialists, including psychiatrist Elorri Amestoy.
"Our role is to see, the day after the tragedy, how people are doing, to accompany them, to reassure and to anchor them again in reality", she explains.
"States of agitation, amazement, prostration"
The doctor explains that the cell "manages outdated symptoms, that is to say states of agitation, amazement, prostration... People who need to evacuate this stress, the surplus of emotions that 'you can't manage yourself'.
Elorri Amestoy emphasizes prevention "because symptoms can often occur within days."
"We resume a little normal life, and that's when we really realize what happened, and can appear states of acute stress", concedes the psychiatrist.
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Within the framework of this cell, the specialists ask if the pupils and the teachers have reminiscences of the scene, things that come back like noises or images, nightmares, avoidance of places or things that can make the trauma", she lists, stressing that it was important to talk about it. For middle and high school students and all the staff of the establishment, it will be difficult to avoid the subject in the days to come.