She was in a pitiful state when she arrived at the hospital in Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the suburbs of Paris: her hair was caked in dirt; there were cuts and bruises on her body; her face was emaciated.
To the medical team, the young woman found unconscious on a forest footpath and now being wheeled into casualty wearing an oxygen mask was just another sad statistic, someone who had apparently tried to end it all with a cocktail of drugs and alcohol.
It's a scene with which any doctor in any hospital in any city will be familiar.
Except we - all of us - knew this victim. How could we not. Noémie Lenoir has been in our living rooms almost constantly over the past few years, fronting the now famous advertising campaign for Marks & Spencer along with Myleene Klass and a string of top models including Twiggy.
But Lenoir, 30, was always the one chosen to wear the bikinis and the lingerie - she was always the most drop-dead glamorous of the lot.
Super success
The contrast between the girl on the huge traffic-stopping billboards and the girl found by a passer-by walking his dog in woods in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, on the outskirts of the French capital on May 9, is shocking indeed.
Apart from the M&S campaign, Lenoir worked for Gucci, L'Oreal, Next, Gap, Tommy Hilfiger, and Victoria's Secret in the US. She was featured in a line-up of the world's most successful black models by renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz.
"Always professional, always on time, a really sweet girl," is the verdict of someone who worked with her at M&S - a rare compliment for a supermodel. Yet her private life was marked by terrible betrayal of one kind or another; not on her part, but by the men she chose as lovers.
Her relationship with former Chelsea football star Claude Makelele was dogged by persistent rumours of his infidelity. The two finally separated last year, but remain close. The couple have a five-year-old son, Kelyan.
Lenoir was staying at Makelele's Parisian home when she is believed to have called emergency services complaining "she felt very ill", before making a second call cancelling an ambulance. She then left the house.
She was found several hours later slumped on the ground next to a bottle of spirits and pills and was rushed to hospital. Lenoir left the hospital yesterday and is now recovering at home.
How did she end up here? Well, friends — as well as internet sites in France — say she became depressed after Makelele dashed her hopes of a reconciliation. But they also point to another man in her recent past. Or, should we say, the sex scandal that has embroiled him in his native Switzerland.
It was the reason why Lenoir's apparent suicide attempt was front-page news there this week. "Hirschmann's ex wanted to take her own life" screamed the headline in the popular Swiss daily newspaper Blick.
Behind that headline is a deeply disturbing story, one to which, through no fault of her own, Noémie Lenoir has become inextricably linked.
The backdrop is Zurich, home to the jet set and "Eurotrash", although it is not always possible to tell the difference, particularly with men such as Carl Hirschmann.
He and Lenoir met at a society party in Switzerland last year. They were later spotted together at Cipriani restaurant in London, "kissing and cuddling" along the Champs-Élysées in Paris and dining at the Terrasse in Zurich.
That was in October. The following month, Carl Hirschmann was arrested. He was detained in prison for three days on charges of "sexual compulsion" — forcing, or trying to force, three women to have oral sex with him.
Shortly after the sordid revelations surfaced, Hirschmann and Lenoir split up, but they are said to have remained in contact.
Worse for wear
More damaging headlines were to follow, however. In March this year, Hirschmann was arrested again. And the allegations? That he had sex with a girl under 16.
Even before the tragic events of May 9, Lenoir's drinking had become a source of concern back in France.
She has, it is claimed, been seen a little the worse for wear at a number of functions — "staggering around and slurring her words", to use the words of one observer.
Miss Lenoir has cancelled all public engagements for the "foreseeable future". This time last year she was at the Cannes Film Festival wowing the crowds in Armani.
Now she is in a private room in hospital, not far from the council estate where she grew up (her white father was a jobbing electrician, her black mother a cleaner). "She wanted to get away from the drug-running and the violence," said a friend. "Modelling was her escape route."
In fact, she was spotted by a talent scout buying stamps in a post office near her parents' home in 1998 and signed up by an agency. Soon, she was on the cover of Vogue and Marie Claire.
But, like so many others, success in front of the camera was not matched by the happiness she so desperately craved away from the limelight.
Makelele is said to have cheated on her when she was pregnant (reportedly shuttling between Paris and London, seeing both Lenoir and a Page 3 girl). He has now been branded "cold and heartless" for going on a TV talk show only hours after the mother of his son was taken to hospital last week.
This might have been forgivable if it had not been for the accusations of cheating, prompting Lenoir to tell one friend, according to a newspaper report a few years ago: "He has disgraced himself, his family and Chelsea football club."
But she forgave him and even now was hoping for a reconciliation. That hope was ended, it seems, on May 9.
Coming on the heels of her disastrous affair with the odious Hirschmann, it seems all to have been too much for this fragile character.
Lenoir deserved better than either of them.
