Andrew Fifita has revealed he feared his life was over and that he sent a goodbye message to his wife from the back of an ambulance in the aftermath of the life-threatening throat injury he suffered late this season.
While the veteran Sharks prop admits he's still overcoming the trauma from the frightening injury as he undergoes his recovery in hopes of returning to the field.
Fifita was accidentally struck in the larynx by an opposition player when Cronulla played Newcastle at Moreton Daily Stadium back in round 23, and shortly after full-time he reported severe breathing difficulty.
After he initially received some treatment from paramedics, Fifita's condition had deteriorated so rapidly that he was taken to a Brisbane hospital to receive emergency surgery.
Detailing the frightening incident in an interview on Nine News, Fifita said he feared his life was hanging by a thread and chose to message his wife in case he didn't make it.
"I ended up getting the doc, I said 'doc I need your phone'. He said 'what?' and I was like 'I really need your phone'," he said.
"I ended up writing a nice text to my missus (saying) how much I love her.
"She knows the rules. I just told her how much I loved her. (I said) please show the kids these messages when they get older.
"I honestly didn't think I was going to make it there."
Thankfully Fifita's surgery on the fractured larynx was successful and after five days spent in an induced coma to assist with his breathing during recovery, the 32-year-old was omitted.
Although, surgeons revealed to him after the operation just close he came to dying.
"They ended up cutting my neck. He said (if they did it) a minute later I would have died," Fifita said.
"Then they realised they clipped an artery in my neck, and I was bleeding all through my lungs, so I was drowning in my own blood.
"It's surreal. It is scary.
"After sitting with the doc, and he's telling me these stories of what actually happened, he said the trauma will be real and once it hits you it hits you.
"It's taken a long time to process it and I'm still not through it. When you sit in front of a doctor and he tells you, 'four times I went home at night, Andrew, and didn't think you were going to make it'… it's one of those things."
The former NSW Blues Origin and Test prop's road back to the field post-surgery hasn't been easy.
He's effectively had to re-learn how to walk but revealed in an update on Instagram recently that he'd begun light running in a bid to play again for Cronulla in 2022.