Gerard Spong will no longer appear in talk shows from now on. The criminal lawyer became a victim of corona in mid-March and barely survived, he reveals in the AD today.
For years, top lawyer Gerard Spong (76) was a welcome guest on talk shows on television, but that time is over. The criminal lawyer has decided not to appear on talk shows anymore. He has suffered a trauma in the past six months, in which he had to fight against the corona virus.
Gerard in a coma
Gerard reveals today in an extensive interview with the AD why he suddenly disappeared from view. He was felled by corona in mid-March. “I had a 25 percent chance of surviving. I only heard that afterwards. But yeah, I knew it wasn’t right.”
It was decided to put Gerard in a coma and put him on a ventilator. The doctors asked him how far they could go with the treatment. “Because of course there is a chance that if you are kept asleep for two or three months, you will end up in a nursing home as a greenhouse plant.”
57 kilos
It ended up being two days, but Gerard was left with a big blow from his entire illness: he lost weight from 73 to 57 kilos. “It turned out that I had a bacterial infection at the same time, staphylococcus. In addition, I turned out to have developed few antibodies, despite the vaccines. That turned out to be related to medication I was taking for something else.”
Gerard spent weeks in hospital and then rehabilitated for months. “Fortunately after some time I got a real appetite again. Then things quickly got better. I am now even two kilos heavier than I was.”
Not on TV anymore
Although Gerard is back at work, albeit a little more in the background, life has completely changed for him. “Talk shows, for example, I no longer do. There they are half a meter apart, that is too close for me.”
The same applies to witness hearings in smaller rooms. “The courts themselves are fortunately spacious enough, with plastic screens. I’ve always been careful, wore my mouth cap obediently. But I have become even more careful.”
AD interview
The AD interview with Gerard Spong: