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The Finn Ville Koistinen looked death in the eye after a visit to the fitness center.
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A tear in a head artery made emergency surgery necessary for ex-Tigers striker Ville Koistinen.
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Ville Koistinen won the championship trophy with HC Davos in 2015.
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Ville Koistinen booked 18 scorer points for the HCD in two seasons (2013 to 2015).
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Ville Koistinen wants to keep fit, even a few months after he ended his long international career at home with HPK Hämeenlinna. As always, he goes to the gym in Tampere. It’s the middle of August. “I did an exercise and suddenly I felt dizzy,” the Finn tells the newspaper “Ilta-Sanomat”. He wants to sit down, but then decides to tell someone from the staff just to be on the safe side.
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Koistinen does not notice that he is no longer running clean on the way there. However, other exercisers immediately notice that he is pulling a leg behind him. The ambulance is called immediately. “I still remember how I went to the ambulance myself,” said the ex-defender of HC Davos and SCL Tigers. “After that it was just black for a week and I woke up in the hospital.”
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Three-hour emergency surgery
Suddenly it has to be quick. The 39-year-old has torn an artery in his head and a bulge in the vessel has burst. A three-hour emergency operation follows at the Tampere University Clinic. The doctor brings the terrible news to Koistinen’s wife: The chance of survival is only 50 percent! And only in the rarest of cases do those affected not suffer from consequential neurological damage afterwards.
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The father of two spends ten days in the intensive care unit, and five more in the normal ward. “The stars were good in the sky, and I had a guardian angel,” emphasizes the former NHL player (Nashville, Florida). Koistinen looked death in the eye. But he is very lucky. He survived, and as it currently stands, he will not suffer any permanent damage.
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Learned a lot about the limits of life
The former professional athlete still has to take it easy, is not allowed to drive a car or lift anything heavy. “In October there will be a judgment on when I can get behind the wheel again.” He’s attending ice hockey games again, “because I’m in better shape now than before the incident”.
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Koistinen is full of gratitude for the first responders at the gym and their quick response, which has been crucial. He processed what happened. The stroke of fate taught him a lot about the limits of life and relativized the view of everything. “It doesn’t help much to worry too much about what might happen at any moment. You have to enjoy what you have in life and do good when you have the opportunity. “
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