Tissues no issue for Rufer
‘‘I didn’t need any tissues on the football field.’’
It was an emotional moment for his family, when Wynton Rufer came out of an induced coma.
But when he was offered a tissue from the nurse, the All Whites legend jokingly replied: ‘‘I didn’t need any tissues on the football field.’’
The 56-year-old was rushed to hospital after suffering a cardiac arrest while riding a Lime scooter home from a Breakers basketball game in Auckland on Sunday.
He was in that coma until Tuesday, but came out of it and was moved out of intensive care soon after.
‘‘His wife and two sons were there and they emotionally probably cried a little bit.
‘‘He was obviously heavily sedated but his first reaction was, in the sedated state, to say I didn’t need any tissues on the football field. When I heard that, that told me that he was good,’’ Wynton Rufer’s first words on coming out of an induced coma
Wynton’s brother Shane told Stuff.
‘‘During the induced sleep, they were able to do tests including a scan on his brain, so before he woke up we knew his brain had not been affected.
‘‘But he’s now up and about. He has to follow strict orders and he’s on different drugs including other blood-thinning drugs, and they have to wait a couple of days to see if there’s any reactions, but then he should be able to go home.’’
The former Werder Bremen striker collapsed by his friend, Florian Wellmann.
"There was a German man with him and he had his own scooter, and when Wynton fell off his scooter on the pavement or road, the German man was
quite shocked and didn’t know what to do,’’ Shane said.
‘‘But the one thing he did do was he yelled for help and there was a lady who was nearby and she rang an ambulance.
‘‘When this German guy was yelling for help, people from around there, whether they were in cars or things, maybe neighbours, one of them started straight away CPR and that saved my brother’s life.’’
Rufer played 23 times for New Zealand, including at the
1982 World Cup, and was a star in European club football in both Switzerland and Germany in the
1980s and 90s. Although he has long since retired from professional football, Shane said his brother was still ‘‘extremely fit’’.