Bacteria slowed my recovery: Big Papi

ORTIZ ON THE MEND

David Ortiz said he feared the worst after being shot in the Dominican Republic in early June.

“I thought I wasn’t going to be able to be who I am right now and go back to normal, you know? At some point, I started losing hope,” the former Boston Red Sox slugger told MLB.com.

Ortiz underwent surgery to repair damage to his intestines and liver and to remove his gallbladder in the hours immediately following the June 9 shooting.

After being transported to Massachusetts General Hospital, Ortiz underwent a second surgery to make sure the first had been done correctly.

The man known as Big Papi continued to struggle and remained on a feeding tube for weeks. Doctors then figured out why he wasn’t improving.

“They discovered this bullet gave me a bacteria they had never seen before,” Ortiz said. “They had this team, anti bacteria team. They were really on me hard because they want to get this out of my body. The reality is that they did, but they fought with it. The reason why they went in the third time is because the bacteria had my intestine all kinked. It wasn’t able to function.”

Unlike before the first two surgeries, Ortiz had time to think about everything going on.

“Now I know what I’m dealing with,” Ortiz said. “Now I know where I got damaged and I know that those parts weren’t working the way the doctor expects. They started talking about a third surgery. Then, when I was hearing all that, you get scared because you don’t know if you’re going to be able to survive. But then I survived and my next thing to worry about was, ‘What am I going to be like after everything?’ That’s when you really start worrying about things.”

Ortiz said he began eating solid foods again after returning home in late July.

When asked about June 9, Ortiz said he remembered a “wonderful day” with his kids before going out with a friend. He was enjoying a drink when his life changed.

“It’s a very nice place, a lot of big-time people go — I sit down and have a drink and all of a sudden I got shot,” he said. “It’s something that I will not forget about.

“I wasn’t hurting (at first). I felt like a little burn, but I don’t even look at that.”

Reuters

GREG M. COOPER / USA TODAY FILES Former Red Sox slugger David Ortiz says he “started” losing hope during his recovery from a shooting.