Surviving two near-fatal health episodes may have pumped new life into André Alphonso’s heart, but it’s his new approach and never-say-die attitude that have had the most powerful impact on him and the people around him.
‘André, cough! Stay with us Andre, stay with us! Cough! Cough! André, you have just descended into critical, and we’re trying to save your life.’
“I still get goosebumps when I hear that voice,” André adds.
It was a loud, almost screaming voice piercing through the organised mayhem as nurses and doctors worked to save André Alphonso’s life.
At the time, André recalls, “The doctors and nurses were scrambling around frantically and I had no idea what was going on. My bed was tilted at an angle, I was almost upside-down as they tried to get my blood pressure up again.
“People were running around everywhere, pushing stuff into me, injecting me with stuff, barking instructions, it was chaotic.”
The voices come back again – ‘Don’t go to sleep! Prepare the defibrillator, his heart’s about to stop’.
At that point, André thought, “Is this it? Was that my life? In those moments when you make eye contact with death, strange things happen, because in that moment I knew I was not dying because I hadn’t lived my truth.”