David Ginola ‘beat the odds’ with recovery after six-hour heart-attack op following coma
Ex-Premier League ace suffered a cardiac arrest after he suddenly collapsed while playing in a French charity match
DAVID Ginola has revealed he faced a nine in 10 chance of being left a “vegetable” after his heart attack last month.
The former Premier League ace, 49, is battling to come to terms with his collapse during a charity match in his native France.
But he believes his late mother Mireille was a “lucky star” watching over him as paramedics fought for ten minutes to get his heart working, then as surgeons performed a six-hour quadruple bypass op.
David, 49 – who was left in a coma – told French newspaper L’Equipe: “It has been complicated to handle, psychologically.
“The fact that I am still here, when the clinic told me that nine out of ten people who return after that happens are in the state of a vegetable.
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“I must have a lucky star – that must be my mother, from up there – watching over me.
“Maybe people gave me a kick in the ass and said, ‘This is not your time’.
“I have hundreds of questions, but not necessarily for other people, rather for myself.
“Compared to life, the little things seem insignificant.
“It was a relatively major procedure. But the only question for the medical team was the state of the brain.
“Generally, when someone goes through something like this, you end up in a rest home.”
David, who played for Newcastle, Aston Villa and Spurs, is now working for French TV covering the Euro 2016 Championship