Jean-Pierre Adams
Former French international is dead
Jean-Pierre Adams during his playing days.
© AFP via Getty Images
Former French soccer star Jean-Pierre Adams has died. He had been in a coma since 1982 after a failed operation.
Former French national soccer player Jean-Pierre Adams (1948-2021) has died at the age of 73. This was announced by the French football association Fédération Française de Football on Monday (September 6th) on his website. Adams had been in a coma for 39 years after a medical malpractice in 1982.
Jean-Pierre Adams was on the football field 22 times for “Les Bleus”
Adams originally came from French West Africa, now Senegal. At the age of ten he came to France on a pilgrimage with his grandmother and was subsequently adopted by a French family. He began his football career in 1967 as a striker in the amateur league, and later moved to the position of central defender at the Olympique Nîmes club. In the following years, the professional kicker was also on the pitch for OGC Nice and Paris Saint-Germain.
Jean-Pierre Adams made his debut for “Les Bleus”, the French national team, in 1972. As a tough central defender, he earned the nickname “Black Rock” on the pitch in the years that followed. He ran a total of 22 international matches for the “Équipe Tricolore”.
39 years in a vegetative state
Adams had been in a coma since 1982, a year after his retirement, as a result of unsuccessful anesthesia and was cared for by his wife Bernadette Adams. Doctors had injected the professional athlete with too high a dose of anesthetic before an operation on his knee – actually a routine procedure – and Adams almost died back then. The malpractice resulted in a lack of oxygen in the brain that caused Adams to fall into a vegetative state – and never to wake up.