Jean-Pierre Bély, a 51-year-old male nurse from Charente, had been diagnosed in 1972 with multiple sclerosis. By the mid-1980s the disease had progressed to severe quadriparesis with bowel and bladder dysfunction. He was 100% disability-rated by the French social security authorities. He came to Lourdes on the Diocese of Angoulême pilgrimage of October 1987 — by his own account, hostile and reluctant.
On October 9, during the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick administered in the hospital chapel, he felt an intense cold then a wave of heat through his body. He fell into a profound peace. That night, alone in his bed, he found he could move his fingers, then his arms, then his legs; he stood, then walked. The next day he walked unaided to the Grotto. The Lourdes Medical Bureau and the International Medical Committee studied the case for twelve years; the Bishop of Angoulême recognised it as the 66th miraculous Lourdes cure on February 9, 1999.