Durban — Former Springboks flyhalf Derick Hougaard has a 50% chance of awakening from the coma he has been in since 10 June.
Hougaard is in the intensive care unit of a Pretoria hospital after being found unconscious by his girlfriend, singer Nadine, more than a week ago.
According to Sunday reports, Nadine noticed that Hougaard’s hands were blue, and after she failed to wake him up, she called an ambulance. It took paramedics an hour-and-a-half to stabilise him.
“He has not been awake since then and is on a ventilator because his lungs are not working properly,” a source told the newspaper. “He is in the intensive care unit where only one person can visit him at a time, so it is a very difficult situation.
“It is obviously traumatic for everyone who goes to visit him to see him with so many pipes in his body and to know that he is fighting for his life.”
At this stage, only close family are allowed to visit Hougaard and doctors are giving him a 50% chance of survival.
A toxicology report will be made available soon and that will give clues as to what has happened to the 40-year-old.
Hougaard was the flyhalf in the Bulls’ most successful era — between 2002 and 2008 — when they won won Currie Cup and Super Rugby titles. His pin-point goal-kicking endeared him to the Loftus Faithful, who dubbed him their “liefling”.
Hougaard kicked the winning conversion when the Bulls dramatically beat the Sharks in the 2007 Super Rugby final in Durban.
IOL Sport