All Whites legend Wynton Rufer suffered a heart attack and fell into a coma while riding a Lime scooter in Auckland on Sunday.
The 56-year-old confirmed with German news site Kreiszeitung Syke that he had a "mild heart attack", but would "have a full recovery after six weeks".
Friend Florian Wellman, who was with Rufer at the time of the incident, said they were leaving the NZ Breakers basketball game against the Perth Wildcats at Spark Arena, when Rufer suddenly fell to the pavement and cried for help.
An elderly woman stopped and phoned the emergency services, as two others stopped their car to assist.
"One of them pushed me away and immediately started resuscitation on Wynton," Wellmann told Kreiszeitung Syke.
"I was totally in shock, paralysed, and the man did that because he completed a life-saving course three weeks ago."
Once at the hospital, Rufer fell into a coma, which he woke from on Tuesday.
A star with Bundesliga side Werder Bremen during the 1980s, the Wellingtonian is widely regarded as Oceania's greatest footballer of all time.
He won four Bundesliga titles and was named Oceania Footballer of the Century in 2000.
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