Disaster struck yesterday afternoon for 49-year-old PSV fan Appie during the PSV championship party in Eindhoven, where heavy fireworks exploded in his hand. This morning the bandage was removed and he saw the damage with his own eyes. “I’m missing my index finger, middle finger and half my thumb. It’s still bleeding quite a bit.”
From the hospital, Appie tells RTL News on the phone what nightmare he ended up in yesterday. In Eindhoven, PSV celebrated the national championship after the 4-2 victory over Sparta Rotterdam. Appie was there and said she had been drinking heavily. “It was really a party,” he says.
‘I thought they were giving me a torch’
Appie says that he received heavy fireworks from a bystander. “I thought they were putting a torch in my hand, but it turned out to be a cobra.” In footage taken before the incident, someone can be heard shouting, ‘Here’s a torch!’ shouts.
The police are investigating the images, but say that it cannot be seen whether Appie got his hands on the cobra. According to a spokesperson, it is clear that many people were under the influence.
The cobra exploded. Watch images of that moment here:
“I looked at my hand, but didn’t immediately realize how serious it was,” says Appie. “I felt no pain.” That didn’t come until later, when police took him to the emergency room. “The ambulance was there almost immediately.”
In the hospital his right hand turned out to be severely damaged. Only this morning Appie saw that with his own eyes, when the bandage was removed from the wound. “I’m missing my index finger, middle finger and half a thumb. I saw the wound and it’s still bleeding quite a bit.”
“I had heard that there was a lot of damage, but I didn’t expect that fingers would be completely gone.” There’s only one blessing in disguise, if you can call it that. “Luckily I held the cobra above my head and not near my face, because then it could have been much worse,” he says.
‘Very painful’
“Despite very strong painkillers, it is all very painful,” says Appie. “I can still move the two fingers I have left a little bit.”
“I think I am aware of what happened, but I have not yet processed it,” says Appie. His phone was ringing off the hook yesterday, many people have seen the images.
He will remain in the hospital in the coming days, where he will receive special oxygen therapy to improve blood circulation in his damaged hand. “It’s just shit,” says the PSV fan.
No report filed yet
Appie says that the cobra was reported to him, but he doesn’t know who did it. It is still unclear whether he will press charges. The police are investigating. If Appie was indeed pushed into the cobra’s hands, this could possibly constitute a criminal offence.
PSV speaks of a ‘very unpleasant event’ and hopes that Albert, as Appie is really called, recovers quickly. Furthermore, the football club looks back on a ‘more than successful day’.
Appie only has one message: “People shouldn’t come to a football match with cobras. Well, this happens to me, but for the same money it would have been a small child.”
Tags: Cobra exploded hand PSV fan Appie Thought giving torch RTL News
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