It turns out that his panic was related to his experience of the war.
In 1943, when Jo was 20 years old, the German army rounded up all the young men in Vinay and took 40 prisoners in retaliation for the Résistance blowing up bridges. They were first locked up for 8 days in a windowless building part of the school in St Nazaire en Royans, and then sent by train to Danzig (Gdańsk). He spent two years doing what was called travail obligatoire or compulsory labor.
At some point he worked in a submarine. The story goes that in 1944, the Americans blew up all the boats in the harbor and all the prisoners working on those boats died. Joe was saved because he was working in the submarine out of sight under water.
It seems he might have been claustrophobic and that the CT scan brought back the feelings of the past, creating the panic attack. During the last year of his life, he remained haunted by the past. His sisters say he would wake up screaming in the middle of the night and they would have to calm him down. They would ask him: What’s wrong? And he would reply: I’m scared. The sisters had to reassure him that there was nothing to fear and that they were with him by his side, taking care of him.
At the end of the war, he came home. He worked in his parents’ grocery store for the rest of his life, taking over the store after their death. Almost 70 years later, the war was still with him.
I heard that he kept a little diary of his time away. I hope I can one day take a look at it.
Rest in peace, Jo.