The former footballer Jean-Pierre Adams, who went into a coma in 1982 after a botched knee operation, has died at the age of 73 .

Adams was a French professional footballer who earned a contract with Nîmes and spent the next nine seasons in Division 1, also representing Nice and Paris Saint-Germain. In 1972 he was one of the first black players to represent France.

Jean-Pierre Adams was admitted to the hospital on March 17, 1982, for a routine procedure on a torn tendon in his knee. The hospital staff was on strike when the date arrived.

His wife Bernadette, who cared for Adams at their house throughout his coma, told CNN in 2016 that “the female anesthetist was looking after eight patients, one after the other, like an assembly line.”