{"id":418845,"date":"2026-01-17T10:02:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T10:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/418845\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T10:02:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T10:02:21","slug":"damien-martyn-reveals-details-on-meningitis-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/418845\/","title":{"rendered":"Damien Martyn reveals details on meningitis recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Damien Martyn has opened up on his \u201cmiraculous\u201d recovery<\/a> from meningitis, revealing he was given a \u201c50\/50 chance of survival\u201d and was not able to walk or talk when he first woke from an induced coma.<\/p>\n

The only place to stream every match of the 2025\/26 KFC BBL LIVE is on FOX CRICKET, available on Kayo Sports. | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\n

The 54-year-old, who played 67 Tests between 1992 and 2006 and 208 one-day internationals, was rushed to hospital in late December after falling ill while lying down.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

He was treated for meningitis, which is an inflammation of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord.<\/p>\n

Martyn was then placed in an induced coma and fighting for life. Fortunately, Fox Cricket commentator Adam Gilchrist revealed earlier this month that his former teammate had returned home after being released from hospital.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Martyn took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to show his gratitude towards his family, friends and the wider cricket community while revealing further details on his recovery and just how serious his condition was.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis post is A BIG thank you to ALL my family, friends and so many other people who have reached out to me!\u201d Martyn wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the 27th of December 2025 my life was taken out of my hands\u2026when meningitis took over my brain, & unbeknownst to me I was placed into a paralysed coma for 8 days to help me fight this awful disease. And that I did! Fight that is!\u2026. <\/p>\n

\u201cAfter being given a 50\/50 chance of surviving, I came out of the induced coma 8 days later\u2026not able to walk or talk. And yet 4 days after that, with the doctors in disbelief, I walked, I talked and proved to them all why I should be released from hospital to start my recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Known as one of the game\u2019s great strokemakers, Martyn became a key figure in Steve Waugh\u2019s all-powerful Australian side, hitting 13 centuries and averaging 46.37.<\/p>\n

He was also part of the Australia team that won the 2003 ODI World Cup, cracking 88 not-out in the final against India in a match-winning partnership with Ricky Ponting.<\/p>\n

Martyn, who retired in 2006 during the Ashes series, wrote that the bout of meningitis was a reminder of just \u201chow fragile life is\u201d.<\/p>\n

Steve Smith blasts INCREDIBLE BBL ton | 04:39<\/p>\n

\u201cSo happy to be home, to be able to put my feet in the sand on the beach and to start thanking all those people that reached out to me and my family in their unwaivering (sic) support,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis experience has reminded me of how fragile life is, how quickly everything can change & how precious time is!<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many wonderful people in this world \u2026 from paramedics (at Mermaid Waters Ambulance), doctors & nurses (at Gold Coast University Hospital) \u2026 to family, friends and people I didn\u2019t even know. I feel like I met all these fantastic people in the past 3 weeks, or they reached out to me through messages of love and support. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am so grateful to you all. <\/p>\n

\u201cThank you! Bring on 2026 \u2026I\u2019m back!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Damien Martyn has opened up on his \u201cmiraculous\u201d recovery from meningitis, revealing he was given a \u201c50\/50 chance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-418845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}