Australian footballer Sam O’Sullivan has contracted a rare meat-eating bacteria.
He ended up in a coma and doctors pronounced him dead – but he narrowly escaped.
Now he talks about the hard times then.
– I felt like I had no purpose, he said in the podcast I have news for you.
In 2015, 24-year-old Sam O’Sullivan was infected with a carnivorous antibiotic-resistant bacteria. It settled into the leg resulting in muscle rot.
He was pronounced dead by doctors
O’Sullivan was so ill that he ended up in a coma. His body then became swollen, which led to his death being declared dead by a doctor and his family advised to bid him farewell.
But two weeks later, he miraculously woke up and believed he was one of seven people to have survived from the carnivorous bacteria.
Despite the good news, there was no celebration for O’Sullivan – he discovered that he would never be able to walk or play football again.
It ended with a ruined lifestyle
The message he received led to post-traumatic stress and a disruptive lifestyle.
Football has been my life, so it is very important to be thrown at one of them when you wake up. Because I didn’t play, I ended up in a negative spiral and started drinking a lot, he says in the podcast I have news for you.
– I didn’t feel like I had any goal.
Beat the disease – again
Again, O’Sullivan overcame the disease, and a year later he learned to walk again. Today he lives in London with his girlfriend.
I try to look at it positively and not take things for granted in life. He says if I didn’t get sick, I wouldn’t live in London and wouldn’t be with my current partner.