Wayne Lineker shares health update after being hospitalised for weeks in near-death experience

Wayne Lineker has shared an update after spending the ‘most traumatic’ 16 days.

Having experienced a ‘truly near-death experience’, the 63-year-old recently shared he had done a 10-day stint in intensive care.

The recently sober Ibiza club owner had been ‘completely knocked’ out by an illness which he first mistook for Covid.

Lineker told Instagram followers he believed he caught a ‘very bad infection’ while on a flight from Mauritius to Dubai and ended up thinking he was having a heart attack before being rushed to hospital.

The brother of footballer Gary Lineker, Wayne was diagnosed with ‘chronic pneumonia’ and was eventually moved to a respiratory ward. Having previously said he was ‘out of the danger zone’, he issued an update on his health yesterday (2 December) as he gave thanks to the NHS.

“I want to update you on my near-death experience – which it was,” he said from a hospital bed. “It was very, very scary. I caught an infection in Dubai, I immediately flew home because I felt so ill.”

Lineker said that he went to his house, got some sleep and was ‘walking fine’ initially. However, he woke up in the early hours and ‘couldn’t move’, and an ambulance was called to take him to hospital.

He said it’s been an ‘incredibly strong painful experience’ as he added: “I can’t get out of bed, I can’t walk. I have to have two people help me to go to the toilet and stuff like that.

“It’s just very difficult.”

Lineker said he is now ‘on the mend’. Medical staff have reportedly found the likes of ‘pockets of phlegm’ in his lungs which ‘need to come out’, so a procedure was carried out on Monday.

“I’ve got a tube coming out of me now,” he continued, “which sucks all of the puss out etc, in order to clear my lungs.”

He says this has all helped ‘so much’ and he feels ‘confident’ that he will recover.

“I’d just like to thank the NHS especially for their help, what they do is incredible,” Lineker added. “So thank you guys and I will keep you updated in the next few days on my progression.

“But overall, I’m happy and in a much better position mentally and physically to get me through this.”

The party club owner thanked his followers for their messages as he said: “Wayne’s going nowhere, Wayne’s staying,” and that this isn’t much compared to the ‘five-day benders’ he used to have on drugs and alcohol.

“I’ll survive,” he added.

Lineker also wrote in the caption: “I honestly don’t think I would have been medically strong enough to survive it if I wasn’t four months sober.”

He went sober earlier this year and ‘left Ibiza’ after the party season as he embraced a new lifestyle.