Sharks player Andrew Fifita was in an ambulance when he sent his wife a text message to say a final goodbye as he was rushed to hospital.
Andrew Fifita was in the back of an ambulance being rushed to hospital when he sent his wife a text message to say goodbye for the final time.
The Cronulla star suffered a significant throat injury during an NRL game in August.
He had been involved in a heavy collision and was rushed to hospital in an ambulance after paramedics assessed him on the field after the game.
The 32-year-old has revealed he believed he was going to die.
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While being transported in the ambulance, Fifita has told Nine News he asked his club doctor to borrow his phone in order to send a final text to his wife Nikkita.
“I ended up getting the doc, I said ‘doc I need your phone’. He said ‘what?’ and I was like ‘I really need your phone’,” he said.
“I ended up writing a nice text to my missus (saying) how much I love her.
“She knows the rules. I just told her how much I loved her. (I said) please show the kids these messages when they get older.
“I honestly didn’t think I was going to make it there.”
Fifita was placed in an induced coma before undergoing laryngeal surgery at Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital.
The club released a statement at the time to announce the surgeon carrying out the procedure said that the surgery was successful.
However, Fifita has now revealed he came close to death as a result of the procedure going wrong.
“They ended up cutting my neck. He said (if they did it) a minute later I would have died,” Fifita said.
“Then they realised they clipped an artery in my neck, and I was bleeding all through my lungs, so I was drowning in my own blood.
“It’s surreal. It is scary.
“After sitting with the doc, and he’s telling me these stories of what actually happened, he said the trauma will be real and once it hits you it hits you.
“It’s taken a long time to process it and I’m still not through it. When you sit in front of a doctor and he tells you, ‘four times I went home at night, Andrew, and didn’t think you were going to make it’… it’s one of those things.”
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