AFL great's son in induced coma after mystery brain infection
Geelong great Peter Riccardi has revealed his son, Osca, was briefly put on life support after suffering a mystery infection on the brain.
Speaking on the podcast Beyond The Boundary, the former AFL player revealed that his son became suddenly ill a fortnight ago.
“A couple of Sundays ago (Osca) came home, been out with a few of his mates, he’d been to the beach, went out for dinner, went out to play 10-pin bowling ... and said he was going to bed,” Peter Riccardi said.
“Then halfway through the night he was up, he was vomiting, he was feeling a bit crook ... we just thought he was run down.
“But come lunchtime, he couldn’t talk, he could hardly walk.”
He added that they were extremely lucky his wife Mel worked from home that day and rushed Osca straight to hospital, where they found some "swelling" on his brain following a scan.
Doctors also found that he had a sinus and ear infection and glandular fever all “rolled into one”.
“Whether the swim did something with his ears and went into his brain, I’m not 100 per cent sure, yet,” Riccardi said.
“They put him an induced coma for three days. He was in ICU (Intensive Care Unit) for four days.
“But he’s back home now recovering ... you wouldn’t know that two weeks ago, watching him on life support, and seeing him now, it’s amazing what they do in there.”
The podcast hosts then asked how scary the situation was for Riccardi and his wife, and he responded: “It was, yeah ... obviously they have got to prepare you for the worst (outcome)."
“That was probably the worst thing to hear, because we didn’t know how he was going to come out of it.
“But again, like I said, if Mel had gone to work that day, he wouldn’t be here today.
“We’re pretty lucky, we’re pretty lucky.
“It must have been a mother’s intuition or mother’s instinct to stay at home that day.”
Image: Facebook/ Geelong Cats