Mr. Brehl, with this interview we want to and will primarily look to the future. But we also have to talk about September 13, 2022. Would you describe what you think happened that day?
I was standing in the Eintracht fan block in the Olympique Marseille stadium, looked down the block and suddenly saw this rocket flying towards me. I instinctively threw up my right arm and made a small twisting motion. And then there was the impact. Like a punch in the chest. I fell over to the left in slow motion and immediately realized that I was paralyzed on one side on my left side. However, I did not fall down a flight of stairs, as has been repeatedly written in other places, but simply fell down the two or three steps that were next to me, with my neck open after my fall, because I could no longer catch myself through the paralysis. I’m pretty sure I broke my cervical vertebra and ribs. This rocket, or rather this glowing mass, then lay in front of my face and I think I tried to put my hand in front of my face, my right hand, which I also suffered burns on to protect my face, with it that will not burn the eyes or the nose or the skin of the face. My partner, who was standing next to me, immediately jumped to my aid and removed this glowing mass. And at that moment, people who had observed it came rushing towards me. They then pressed scarves and T-shirts and everything they had available onto the wound in my neck and tried to stabilize me.
Did you witness all of this with full awareness?
I was fully conscious, yes. I didn’t have any pain either, except in my neck from lying on the landing edge with it. But I didn’t feel any pain on the burned hand, nor on the side that was hit. However, I no longer felt my arm. That’s why I asked my partner: “Is it still there or is it somehow torn off?” I don’t feel him anymore.”
Did you immediately realize how serious the situation is or could have been?
It took me half a minute to realize it all. Also that I am not fatally injured. Of course, this half minute wasn’t so nice. So I asked myself, “What if you’re going to pass out right now, if it’s the carotid artery?” What do I tell my partner now?” That was the famous near-death experience, but without a film showing what happened in life. It was a state of shock, a state of helplessness: I’m lying here now and I can’t do anything and I’m completely dependent on others. That is what still haunts me to this day. This lying and waiting. The question of whether I can still be helped or whether I’m no longer in this world. That was hard to bear. But I was surrounded by all these people who took care of me, and then the French rescue workers came, and I gained more and more confidence. When I received first aid and was carried out of the stadium, I heard the Champions League anthem in the background, so the game hadn’t started yet.
