OLANREWAJU IBITOYE
Former Paris Saint Germain (PSG) and France Defender, Jean-Pierre Adams has died after being in a coma for 39 years.
The Senegalese descent died at the age of 73 at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Nimes Hospital in France. Adams slipped into a coma in 1982 following an anaesthesia error during a knee surgery at the Edouard Herriot Hospital, Lyon.
The defender had sustained a ligament injury at age 34 and arranged for surgery on 17th May 1982 but in other to make him sleep, he erroneously overdosed which eventually led to bronchospasm that starved his brain of oxygen.
In 1990, the anaesthetist and his trainee were fined $815 and given none-month suspended sentences after Adams’ doctor – Pierre Huthfaulted the way the surgery was handled.
It took the Seventh Chamber of Correctional Tribunal in Lyon seven years before the doctors were found guilty of “involuntary injury.”
Adams won 22 caps for Les Bleus in the 1970s and teamed up with Marius Tresor to form a solid partnership that was called ‘the BlackGuard’.
He played for Nîmes from 1970-73 and for PSG from 1977-79 after joining from Nice.
Nimes Olympic FC which currently plays in League 2 took to their social media account to announce his passing away.
“We learned this morning of the disappearance of Jean-Pierre Adams. He’d worn the colours of Nimes Olympique 84 times and formed with Marius Trésor “the blackguard” in the French team. The Club offers its sincere condolences to its loved ones and to its family.”
He is survived by his wife, Bernadette and two children.
Bernadette explained in 2007 “Jean-Pierre feels, smells, hears, jumps when a dog barks. But he cannot see.”