How he did it

Dad of four wins gold medal after agony

Around one and a half years lie between these two pictures: On the left, Bernhard Kaut is in intensive care, on the right he is celebrating with four medals.(Bild: zVg Krone KREATIV)

After a lung transplant, death was very close for Bernhard Kaut (46). But the Lower Austrian fought his way back to life. How he did it, what drove him and why he doesn't just want to prove something to himself through sport.

"I thought of my four children and saw them standing in front of an open grave in my mind's eye," recalls Bernhard Kaut. The 46-year-old from St. Andrä-Wördern in the district of Tulln has a long ordeal behind him - at times he was more dead than alive.