Cagliari’s Yael Trepy Leaves Hospital After Near-Drowning
Cagliari’s young hope, Yael Trepy, has walked out of hospital. Two weeks ago, he was fighting for his life. Now he is smiling again.
The 20-year-old French striker has been discharged from the "Santissima Annunziata" University Hospital of Sassari, closing the most terrifying chapter of a career that had barely started. For Cagliari, and for a fanbase that has followed every medical bulletin with a lump in the throat, it feels like a deep breath after days of suffocating fear.
From holiday horror to intensive care
The accident came on 16 August, far from stadium lights and training pitches. Trepy was on holiday at a villa in the Baja Sardinia area, near the Costa Smeralda, when a day by the pool turned into a nightmare. He nearly drowned.
Emergency services reacted with the kind of precision that leaves no room for error. They airlifted him to Sassari, straight into intensive care. The word "catastrophic" hung over the story from the first moment; without that rapid intervention, it would almost certainly have been the outcome.
Doctors placed Trepy in a medically induced coma. Forty-eight hours in which a young footballer’s future, and more importantly his life, balanced on a thread. Then he woke up.
The recovery began slowly, step by step, in the pulmonology ward. Tests confirmed what everyone around him had barely dared to hope: no major physical damage.
“Not a miracle” – the system that saved him
As Trepy prepared to leave the hospital, Professor Pietro Pirina, director of the department of clinical and interventional pulmonology, chose his words carefully but firmly when speaking to "Sky Sport".
"The patient is leaving hospital in a generally good clinical condition, after a course of treatment that showed a gradual and marked recovery," he said.
He explained that the examinations carried out during Trepy’s stay had shown steady improvement, enough to allow the medical team to plan his discharge "with peace of mind". Then came the line that cut through the emotional noise of the past days. While some have called it a miracle, Pirina preferred something else: the proof of an effective system working exactly as it should, from emergency response to specialist care.
A smile, a farewell, and the road ahead
Trepy left the hospital with a broad smile, accompanied by his mother. He stopped to say goodbye to the medical staff, the general director and the medical director – the people who had watched over him through the worst hours and the slow climb back.
The story now moves north, to Arco in the province of Trento. That is where the next phase begins: rehabilitation. There, specialists will guide him through a programme designed not just to restore strength, but to understand what comes next for his career.
Further detailed tests will determine whether he can return to competition and regain full fitness clearance. For now, there are no guarantees, no dramatic promises.
What there is, though, is a young striker who has already won the most important battle of his life. The next one, on the pitch, can wait.
