Each individual event is unplanned and urgent (life-threatening). But he has a lot of events. He spends a few days in intensive care, gets stabilized, gets sent home, and then is fine for a while... until something happens. There are lots of people in similar situations, i.e. a person with life-threatening allergies, compromised immune systems, etc. Modern medical care means that there are more people skating closer to the edge of death than there once were.