Jean-Pierre Adams arrived at the hospital planning his projects after undergoing minor knee surgery, but he did not know that his life would stop at that station from 1982.
Born in Senegal in 1948, the player arrived in France as a boy and was adopted by a family that opened the way for him to play football.
He passed a number of French clubs, including Olympique Nimes, Nice and Paris Saint-Germain, and knocked on the doors of the French national team, thanks to his physical strength, he formed a distinguished duo with Marius Trésor and then dubbed the "Black Guard".
He retired from play in 1980 and embarked on a journey into the training world before deciding to undergo surgery to get rid of knee level pain.
Moments before entering the room for surgery at the Lyon City Hospital on March 17, 1982, he spoke with his wife Bernadette about his treatment program and asked her to return to accompany him while he was out of the hospital saying, "Don't forget a pair of crutches."
And those were the last words that Bernadette heard from her husband who entered into a coma from which he did not wake up to this day due to a mistake in anesthesia that caused brain damage.
A la veille du duel entre ses 2 anciens clubs, l'OGC Nice a une pensée toute particulière pour Jean-Pierre Adams, plongé dans le coma depuis 36 ans aujourd'hui. ❤️🖤 # OGCNPSG pic.twitter.com/lui6SdPVEy
- OGC Nice (@ogcnice) March 17, 2018
Bernadette today monitors her husband, who is imprisoned in their home in the city of Nimes, and monitors any sign of him holding on to the hope of a miracle and his return to life. She chose to take him home after spending about a year in a rehabilitation center, and she said that if he had stayed in that center, he would not have lived to this day.
Adams is breathing naturally and does not need auxiliary devices to survive, but he needs every detail of his life that Bernadette said in a previous statement to CNN: "He feels everything that is being done to him. He got old faster than me." , No wrinkles, almost white hair. Time stopped on the day of the accident. We hear very well, but it stops there. My husband is here without being here. He is in his own world but he is alive. ”
The family got a court ruling against the hospital and received compensation for the accident, and the French Football Association granted a monthly pension to the player, but Bernadette fears one nightmare, and she said, "Imagine if I died before him, what would happen to him? He would die untreated. He needed me to be able to eat And satisfying his basic needs. If I don't, who will? ”