Ithe haste to return to the stage but almost never opened his eyes again… On January 25, Dave, 77, fell suddenly down the stairs of his house on 16e district, villa Montmorency. If the singer has no memory of this discomfort, his companion, Patrick, explains in Paris Match that he thought he had lost that evening the man who had shared his life for fifty years… “He was there, lying on the ground, inert, I thought he was dead, he recalls. First I called a friend. He warned the guards who contacted the Samu. The firefighters arrived in fifteen minutes…”
Directly intubated, the singer is taken to the military hospital of Percy, where the doctors do not give much of his skin. “Your husband had two epileptic fits during his transfer. He fell into a coma, his condition is deteriorating, we don’t know yet if we will be able to save him, ”he hears Patrick say, collapsed, who decides to warn their two best friends, Marc-Olivier Fogiel and Daniel Auteuil. “We clung to a hope but we were very pessimistic”, reports the boss of BFMTV in Paris Match.
The three men will find themselves for several days at the bedside of the artist, still plunged into a coma and seriously affected in the vertebrae. And gradually regain hope: the cerebral hemorrhage has stabilized, Dave has not had a stroke, the greatest fear of doctors, but he has suffered such head trauma that the prognosis is still uncertain. Daniel Auteuil, who was the victim of a very serious car accident at the age of 18, then offered his friends to watch over him by discussing in front of him: “We have to talk to him, he may hear us…” “ So we were there, the three of us, discussing in front of him like half-crazy, ”continues Patrick in Match. The singer undergoes an operation, gradually regains his senses, even if he experiences immediate memory problems. He also loses his taste and smell, a torture for this fine gourmet…
Back on stage in April
A month later, Dave finds his house of the 16e district, always closely watched. “Since March 7, I have been going back to the hospital every day: occupational therapy, speech therapy, physiotherapy, I even see a psychologist, confides the singer, who always wears a neck brace. But I’m not allowed to drive for the next six months. Other than that, I’m doing great. At the end of April, I will go on stage…” At almost 78 years old, he is well aware of coming back from afar, but does not envisage retirement for all that. “I think I still know my songs,” he quips. I haven’t tried it yet, because my voice is a bit veiled. But for me, being on stage is nirvana…”