A nurse assaulted on Monday by a man with a knife in a hospital in France died on Monday night, the prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday.
The incident had been reclassified as a “murder,” the office of the public prosecutor said in a statement. “An autopsy has been scheduled,” it added.
“I have just learned with immense sadness of the death of Carene, a 38-year-old nurse who was violently attacked yesterday at the Reims University Hospital,” in eastern France, Health Minister Francois Braun, who visited the scene on Monday evening, wrote on Twitter.
A medical secretary was also injured in the attack, which took place on Monday afternoon, when a 59-year-old man with a psychiatric history attacked the two victims with a knife.
The suspect, who was quickly arrested after attempting to flee, “seems to have acted without any apparent motive, especially as he had no appointment in this service” of “occupational medicine and health,” the Reims prosecutor said on Monday in a statement.
He “seems to suffer from severe disorders and has been the subject of a measure of reinforced curatorship for several years,” the prosecutor added.
The man has been taken into custody and the investigation handed over to the Reims central police station. The suspect had been indicted on the charge of committing “acts of aggravated violence” but the case was dismissed in June 2022 “for lack of criminal responsibility,” according to the prosecutor.
