During the PSV champion party in 2024, Appie lost a part of his hand when he picked up a Cobra from the ground for the Philips Stadium. The images that can be seen that Appie bends to pick up the fireworks and walks above his head with the smoking bomb went viral. But how are him now? “You have all seen what happened, I miss two fingers and half a thumb. I have to process it all a bit too.”
YouTuber Meije speaks Appie at the Gat van Waalre, a pond where Appie can often be found when the weather is nice. In the video, Appie says that he has had a fierce time. “Both physically and mentally. Physically it goes again, but I am still mentally recovering.”
In 2012, Albert van de Vliet, ‘Appie’, from Waalre lost his sister José. She was killed in a horrible way in India. The murder remains a major mystery for twelve years. Until the family finally gets answers in the TOXIC series in the past year.
The details of the murder of his sister were so horrible that Appie could not deal with that. “I had a lot of anger and went for a drink again, I came in a vicious circle. In the end, that led me to lose part of my hand at the PSV championship.”
“It was just a very impulsive action.”
Appie says that he had drunk four strong beers on an empty stomach that day when he picked up the torch. “I had picked up a torch four times before that day and it looked the same.” The torch exploded in his hand. “I remember that I didn’t feel pain, I was just in shock right away. I looked at my hand and walked on, because I just wanted to get beer.”
In the evening in the hospital he was told that he was missing two fingers and that there were three pins in his thumb. “It was just a very impulsive action: do it first, then think. It is a bit like I was then, but now that is a bit better.”
Appie asked for help after the accident. “That impulsive behavior is extremely dangerous for me. In the meantime I have received medication and now I think a few seconds before I do something.” He also does not drink alcohol at the moment. “I’m just at the 0.0,” he laughs. “I still like it, but it is also poison.”
“I just come there to celebrate a party.”
Appie has become more famous in recent years. In 2022 he participated in the documentary ‘Problem neighborhoods, 18 years later’ and then the incident followed during the PSV championship. “I was at a festival last year and on one evening 250 to 300 people want to be photographed with me.”
He doesn’t always like that. “I also just come to celebrate a party. People come to ask how things are going and want to be photographed, but I don’t need that at the moment.”
With the Toxic series, there is even more fame. “But people see the serious Appie and not the crazy Appie,” he says. When the madness around Toxic is over, he hopes that he will fall into oblivion and can find peace.
“I am quite happy in itself.”
Appie was a garbage man before his accident, but that is no longer possible. “In the summer it would be possible, but if the temperature falls below twelve degrees, my hand turns completely blue.”
Despite everything he has experienced, he is still satisfied. “I’m just calm again in my mind, I’m pretty happy in itself.” But he still has to give everything a place. “You have all seen what happened. I miss two fingers and half a thumb. The wound is healed well, but I can’t do enough with it. I don’t get happy with it, I have to process it all a bit,” says Appie myself in a video from YouTuber Meije.
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In Toxic You can see the story about Appie’s sister, José van Vliet, the series you look exclusively at Omroep Brabant and at Brabant+.
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