Local cricket coach Craig Hookey was in an induced coma after a standard procedure went horribly wrong

A cricket coach from Melbourne’s southeast thought having his wisdom teeth removed would be a low risk operation but he was soon in an induced coma after it went horribly wrong.

Craig Hookey (front middle) was in the fight of his life after a wisdom tooth procedure went horribly wrong.

When local cricket coach Craig Hookey walked a couple of laps of the ground while watching his team play last Sunday, he felt his life “slowly starting to return to normal”.

The coach of the Heinz Southern Districts Cricket Club in the Dandenong District Association left cricket training on Tuesday, October 31 with a throbbing toothache.

After the pain didn’t subside by Wednesday morning, Hookey scheduled a visit to the dentist that night.

His pain was identified to be coming from his wisdom teeth and he decided to have them removed then and there.

“From there, it all just spiralled out of control,” Hookey recalled.

The 27-year-old is a type 1 diabetic, meaning his body struggles to fight away any sort of infection.

While under local anaesthetic, Hookey was only given pain killers when his condition also required antibiotics.

An infection set into his bloodstream and almost took his life.

“Once the infection got in it spread like wildfire,” Hookey said.

“On the Thursday I wasn’t so bad, Friday I started feeling a lot of pain and then on Saturday night I could barely breathe.

“On Saturday night I was driving and I felt like my airway was going to close over. I went home, I was tired.

“I went to sleep for a couple of hours but then I woke up, I was vomiting and felt like I couldn’t breathe – that’s when I woke mum up and said ‘we have to go to the hospital’.”

Craig Hookey during his time in hospital. Pictures: Supplied.

Hookey is slowly on the mend.

Hookey arrived at Casey Hospital in the early hours of Sunday morning, “spent about a minute and a half in the waiting room” before being transferred to the Intensive Care Unit at Dandenong Hospital.

He was given the option to be operated on immediately – at around 2:30am – with very little room for error, or wait until the morning.

Hookey and his parents, Shane and Sharelle, decided to take the safer option and wait until the morning.

Hookey was placed in an induced coma.

“First thing Monday morning I was rolled in and operated on, next minute, I woke up on the following Friday,” he said.

“I remember there being a lot of people around my bed (when I woke up).

“I had mum and dad there, a bunch of surgeons, nurses and anaesthetists because when they pulled the tube out of my throat, they were unsure if it was ready to be done.

“They wanted to take a risk and see if it would work, because if it didn’t work the anaesthetists would have to put me straight under again.

“They thought the airway was open enough to take it out but there was always the risk that it wasn’t.”

He woke up about an hour after the tube was removed.

Hookey’s stay in hospital lasted 11 days and he lost 11kg.

Since returning home, he has been able to reflect on how “something so basic went so wrong”.

“When I got home from the hospital I started to think about it all,” he said.

“When I explain it to mates, it was a wisdom tooth that caused all this, it is a hard one to explain to some people.

“I have reflected on it a little bit, when I was in hospital I wasn’t in much pain because I was asleep the entire time I was in the most pain.

“It was hard on my parents, they had to sit there and watch me sleep for five days straight.

“That’s probably the stuff you more reflect on rather than someone’s stuffed up a procedure.”

Hookey said the five days he was in a coma took an unimaginable toll on his parents.

“I can’t imagine having to sit there and watch your son with tubes in his nose, his mouth and everything out of his arm,” he said.

“We’re through it now, we’ve had a few conversations since, they’ve filled me in on some things I didn’t know or don’t remember.

“Now we can talk about it but at the time it would’ve been difficult for both of them.”

Hookey (front middle) and his beloved HSD teammates.

When Hookey turned his phone on for the first time after his procedure, he was met with an “overwhelming” showing of support.

“I have been very lucky; HSD Cricket Club have been unreal, the broader DDCA have been unreal,” he said.

“When I got my phone back after not being on it for six or seven days I had messages from people at other cricket clubs I didn’t even know that I run into every so often.

“It was quite overwhelming to be honest … the support everyone gave mum and dad during the tough time, I am very grateful for that too.

“Hopefully in two or three weeks’ time I will be strong enough to return to how things were six or seven weeks ago.”

While Hookey feels life is slowly returning to normal, he admitted he remains unsure exactly what normality looks like after such a close call.

“Returning to normal life doesn’t seem far away but I don’t know exactly what that normal was or what it is,” he said.

“It’s kind of one of those ones where six weeks ago I was perfectly fine and then I have missed pretty much the whole of November in hospital or in bed at home.

“It kind of knocks you about a bit.

“It (life) can be taken away very, very quickly off something so, so simple.”