Leafs legend Borje Salming believes he was nearly killed by COVID-19.

It is a frustrating time in our lives for many of us right now, stuck at home with barely any professional sports to speak of, but it is stories like this one that will serve as a harsh reminder of exactly what the cost of not being careful could look like. 

Former Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Borje Salming is admittedly getting on in his years, the former blue liner is now 69 years of age, but in spite of that Salming was a high level athlete as a younger man so you might be surprised to learn of just how badly affected he was by the recent outbreak of COVID-19. We hear all the time about how those over the age of 60 are far more likely to suffer severe consequences as a result of this disease and in the case of the Swedish defenseman it was extremely severe. Salming recently told The Athletic's Jonas Siegel that he thought he was going to die after trying to fight off the disease for several weeks. 

 “I thought it was my last minutes,” Salming told Siegel over the phone from Sweden. “I thought I was dying. I think myself, I got really frustrated and that’s why I thought I was dying. When you can’t breathe, you die. I thought it was the end.”

“It’s terrifying because it’s so hard to explain. When you don’t get it — you can’t get air — it’s so, so frustrating. I think the body sort of fails. And I think that’s why my body was shaking.”

Salming believes that he was a victim of COVID-19 although he admits he was never officially diagnosed with the virus and in fact believes he was never even tested for it. You see Salming's near death experience took place in early February and at the time the world as a whole was still relatively naive regarding just how deadly this virus would prove to be. Given his advanced age Salming is no doubt lucky he was able to fight off the virus for as long as he did, and no doubt his life as a professional athlete served a big role in helping him survive the incident. 

Salming is widely recognized as a pioneer of the sport, becoming an elite defenseman in the NHL when very few European players had truly made an impact in the league. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1996.