Don’t know if I will ever walk again, but made my peace with that: Cairns

TIL Desk Sports/ Former New Zealand all-rounder Chris Cairns on Friday said that he does not know if he will ever walk again in life but added that he has made peace with it. In August, Cairns was hospitalised after suffering a major heart attack at his home in Australia’s capital, Canberra and was later airlifted to Sydney.

The heart attack resulted in an aortic dissection – an often fatal rare heart condition – and was on life support. He was saved by four open heart surgeries but such was the strain on his body, a blood clot formed and he had a spinal stroke during the surgery, leaving him paralysed from the waist down. Cairns is now residing at the University of Canberra hospital in a special rehabilitation facility.

“I don’t know if I will ever walk again and I have made my peace with that. It is now about understanding I can lead a full and enjoyable life in a wheelchair but at the same time knowing it will be different,” Cairns said in an interview. Cairns, who featured for New Zealand in 62 Tests, 215 ODIs and 2 T20Is from 1989 to 2006, believes that the events of August 2021 feels like it happened a lifetime ago.