Jean-Pierre Adams, the former France international defender who spent the last 39 years in a coma following a botched operation, has died aged 73.
Adams had not woken from a coma since an anaesthesia error at Lyon Hospital as part of a routine knee operation that he undertook on March 17, 1982.
He died on Monday morning at Nimes University Hospital.
Adams, who won 22 international caps for France, said he felt in ‘great shape’ ahead of the operation, which he took aged 34.
He was given anaesthetic that should have knocked him out for a few hours but he never woke up and the defender, born in Dakar, Senegal, in 1948, lost his fight for recovery on Monday.
He quit the course on the morning of the fourth day, such was the concern over a knee issue, and he headed for a hospital in Lyon.
The initial scan reportedly showed damage to a tendon at the back of the knee.
As he headed for the hospital exit the story goes that Adams, who played for Paris Saint-Germain, Nimes and Nice in his career, bumped into a surgeon and after the discussion that followed there was an agreement that it was best to operate on his knee.
‘It’s all fine, I’m in great shape,’ he reportedly told his wife Bernadette on the morning of the operation in what proved to be his first