a 39-year-old patient, athletic but not vaccinated, recounts his difficult recovery after two weeks in a coma

Benjamin Selva, 39, has come a long way. Until a few weeks ago, he cycled up to 100 km every day, as a bicycle courier. At the beginning of December, he contracted Covid-19, and developed very violent symptoms. “Leg cut. Reduced breathing, and no more strength in my legs. I live on the fourth floor of a nice tower overlooking the ocean in Les Sables d’Olonne, [j’avais] I used to hike it up, that day I couldn’t climb a step “, he develops.

His condition deteriorated rapidly. He was transferred to the Nantes University Hospital (Loire-Atlantique), where he spent two weeks in a coma. When he wakes up, he says: “I didn’t recognize myself”.

Benjamin Selva is not vaccinated, and today says he regrets it. The naturopath who follows him had advised him not to perform the injection. “I didn’t ask myself the question, I trusted”, he confides.

“The consequences of a stay in intensive care are never very simple, in particular following heavy stays in intensive care, where it takes several weeks, several months, even a year to recover what we were before”, explains Jean-Claude Lachérade, head of the intensive care unit of the CHD de Vendée in La Roche-sur-Yon (Vendée).