Pope Francis Came Near Death in Hospital, His Doctor Says

In an interview, the leader of Pope Francis’s medical team called it “a miracle” that the 88-year-old pontiff left the hospital, but said he needs to change his vigorous habits, at least for a while, to recover.

The pope’s doctors did not think he was going to make it.

“It’s terrible,” Pope Francis gasped during a breathing crisis last month. The pope, his hand bruised with needle pricks and his oxygen saturation dipping to a dangerously low 78 during his long hospitalization, acknowledged in a failing voice that he might die. He held his doctor’s hand.

Francis had ruled out intubation, which would mean being kept unconscious, the leader of the medical team, Dr. Sergio Alfieri, said in an interview. So his doctors decided to treat the pneumonia in both his lungs with a last-ditch barrage of drugs that risked damaging his organs.

The pope’s closest aides had tears in their eyes as doctors asked the pope’s personal nurse, empowered to make life-or-death decisions, for permission to go ahead with more aggressive treatment. He consented and, ultimately, the pope responded positively.

Even so, the worst had not yet passed. Less than a week later, Francis regurgitated some food and started choking. The doctors, fearing he might die on the spot, immediately suctioned his airway but worried that the inhalation would aggravate his deeply infected lungs. His chief doctor worried all was lost.

But it was not.