French soccer player dies after spending 39 years in a coma

A French soccer player who spent 39 years in a coma after a medical procedure went wrong, has died.

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Jean-Pierre Adams died Monday after falling into a coma on March 17, 1982 while undergoing an operation on a knee tendon that he hurt during a match.

“We learned this morning of the passing of Jean-Pierre Adams,” read a statement from Nimes Olympique, for whom Adams played from 1970 to 1973.

“The club offers its most sincere condolences to his loved ones and his family.”

According to a story from CNN, Adams lapsed into a coma during his surgery, which took place during a strike among hospital employees, leaving the facility short-handed.

“The female anesthetist was looking after eight patients, one after the other, like an assembly line,” Adams’ wife Bernadette told the news outlet in 2016. “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.’”

Adams’ wife cared for her husband for the nearly 40 years he was in a coma.

Adams was 73.

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