❤️VALENTINE’S DAY SPECIAL: “The Greatest Untold Love Story” (long read)

Here is the incredible ordeal of former footballer, Jean-Pierre Adams, who stayed in coma for 39 years; his wife – a true definition of love!

In 1982, the Senegalese-born French footballer, then 34, walked into a Lyon hospital for some routine surgery to correct a troublesome knee. The operation went horribly wrong and he would never talk, walk or move any of his limbs again. His life was brutally turned upside down.

Explaining what truly happened, the player’s wife, Bernadette, told CNN in 2020: “Jean-Pierre traveled to the Édouard Herriot Hospital in Lyon for his X-ray. From there, he was to come home. But he was walking along a corridor in the hospital — where he knew no one — when a doctor who knew all about football, since he looked after the Lyon team, walked past.”

“Stopping to talk, the doctor instantly offered to help and after an instant consultation, he decided upon surgery and booked Jean-Pierre in for an appointment: Wednesday March 17, 1982. When the date came around, there was a problem. The hospital staff were on strike”, she narrated.

“Jean-Pierre’s case was far from urgent — he could have soldiered on for a bit — but the surgery went ahead nonetheless. “The female anesthetist was looking after eight patients, one after the other, like an assembly line,” adds Bernadette.

Jean-Pierre was supervised by a trainee, who was repeating a year, who later admitted in court: ‘I was not up to the task I was entrusted with.’

“Given it was not a vital operation, that the hospital was on strike, they were missing doctors and this woman was looking after eight patients, in two different rooms, someone should have called me to say they were going to delay the operation. They never did, and between the anesthetist and trainee, numerous errors were made. Jean-Pierre was badly intubated, with one tube blocking the pathway to his lungs rather than ventilating them, meaning he was starved of oxygen whereupon he suffered a cardiac arrest,” Bernadette lamented.

Although the accident occurred in 1982, it wasn’t until 1989 that the medical staff were found guilty of “involuntary injury” — and even then, it still needed nearly five more years to decide the family’s dues.

Jean-Pierre Adams turned 73 years in 2021, meaning he spent half of his lifetime in coma. He remained incapable of nearly all voluntary movement but could digest food, as well as open and close his eyes.

His wife, Bernadette, catered for him for throughout the 39 years, barely missing a day’s care. It was a mix of changing clothes, shaving, preparing food — all of it blended — and delivering it, which could take an hour, helping Jean-Pierre go to the toilet, while also helping the kinesiologist ensure his lungs were clean and his muscles exercised to avoid choking and atrophying

“No one ever forgets to give Jean-Pierre presents, whether it’s his birthday, Christmas or Father’s Day…We buy presents like a T-shirt or a jumper because I dress him in his bed — he changes clothes every day,” Bernadette told CNN in 2020, at the family home near Nîmes, in the south of France, where she took care of Jean-Pierre.

“The more time that passes, the more bothered I get,” she added. “His condition does not get any worse, so who knows? If one day, medical science evolves, then why not? Will there be a day when they’ll know how to do something for him? I don’t know. Imagine if I die before him, then what would become of him?” He’ll d.i.e without being looked after. He needs me to be able to eat, to meet his primary needs. If I don’t do it, who will?”

When asked whether her sons — Laurent and Frédéric, who were 11 and four respectively at the time of the accident — could help, she revealed that she was desperate to spare them such a fate.

In a CNN report in March 2020, Bernadette’s and Jean-Pierre’s relationship was termed the greatest untold love story.

Shockingly, the hospital responsible for Jean-Pierre’s condition has never apologised.

Sadly, Jean-Pierre Adams passed away on September 6th 2021 at the age of 73.

Ade Divine