It started on the basement stairs. As if out of nowhere, Peter Smischek could hardly breathe. He tried to stay calm, to take deep breaths. Then he went further, step by step, always slowly. When he got to the top, he sat down on the sofa and rested. The shortness of breath passed as quickly as it came; but the fear remained. “This experience really affected me,” the 74-year-old remembers today. “I didn’t even know what was wrong with me. For some unknown reason, I suddenly became physically less and less resilient.”
The former tax officer and passionate hunter from Oberdolling near Ingolstadt used to roam the Köschinger Forest with his dog every day, but now he found it difficult to walk. Shortness of breath was compounded by swollen feet, which forced him to do nothing. Going for a walk was out of the question. “I felt so weak that I couldn’t even lift a water container out of the car,” he says. Things couldn’t go on like this, he decided.