Photo Courtesy of: AFP Via Getty Images
On September 6, Clubs Nimes Olympique, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), and Nice confirmed that the former soccer great Jean-Pierre Adams died at age 73. He spent 39 of those years in a coma.
“This morning, we learned about the death of Jean-Pierre Adams. He played for Nimes on 84 occasions, and alongside Marius Tresor, he formed the ‘Black guard’ in the French national team,” Nimes Olympique wrote on Twitter.
“The club offers its most sincere condolences to his loved ones and family,” the club added.
“Paris Saint-Germain has lost one of its glorious former players,” PSG said in a statement. “PSG offers its condolences to his family and loved ones.”
CNN reported that in the 1940s, Adams was one of the first Black soccer players to compete with Nimes.
Adams played for the team for Nimes from 1970 to 1973, and later played for PSG from 1977 to 1979, then finally joined Nice.
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After suffering from an injury in March of 1982, Adams had an operation on a damaged tendon in his knee.
However, the hospital staff was on strike at the time of surgery, and Adams was taken in by an undertrained anesthesiologist.“The female anesthetist was looking after eight patients, one after the other, like an assembly line,” his wife Bernadette told the outlet.
“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.”
Unfortunately, Adams suffered from “numerous errors” and was intubated incorrectly during the procedure; one tube blocked the path to his lungs, which took him into cardiac arrest and eventually led to brain damage.
Nice said that the club plans to pay tribute to Adams on their next home game against Monaco on September 19.