
John Nikolic is conscious today, sitting upright in his hospital bed, even talking, according to The Herald Sun.
It’s the first time the former horse trainer has been awake since he and his wife were detained by Fijian police during a raid on their luxury catamaran last month.
The novice sailors were on what they described via their Facebook blog as “the adventure of a lifetime” – a voyage from Florida to Australia, coloured with hiking, fishing, lobster dinners, strolls along white sand beaches and swims in clear tropical waters. But it all came to an end on June 21, as officers swarmed their vessel, the SV Shenanigans, at Port Denarau Marina.
A witness watched on from another boat as the Melbourne couple embraced tightly, before John reportedly collapsed and his wife was taken away by police. It’s believed he had swallowed a potentially lethal drug cocktail in the midst of the chaos.
“The saddest realisation was … when they realised that she was going to go one way and he was going to go the other, the embrace and all that between a husband and wife, that was, to me, sad,” the witness told News Corp.
