Salvador Vargas Met Coldplay’s Chris Martin While in the Hospital Undergoing Treatment, Promising One Day He’d See Him in Concert — 6 Years Later They Met Again
It’s been over a decade since Coldplay has played in Guadalajara, Mexico, and a lot has changed since then. Yes, we’ve been through several U.S. presidents and a devastating pandemic, but people’s personal lives have been through a lot, too. For one young Coldplay fan, his entire life changed.
Six years ago, 16-year-old Salvador Vargas from Michoacán, Mexico, was very sick in the hospital. Vargas had Guillain-Barré syndrome — an illness that affects the central nervous system and can cause muscle weakness and even paralysis. Coincidentally — and sadly — his brother, who was battling leukemia, was also in the same hospital, the Hospital General de México (aka CDMX General), at the same time.
By chance of fate, Chris Martin was visiting CDMX General to visit patients in the leukemia ward. It was then that Vargas’s mother told Martin that her other son was a huge fan of Coldplay. She asked Chris Martin if he would meet Sal in his hospital room, and Martin agreed.
“Among what he told me, I perfectly remember his most important words: ‘Next time, I want to see you in concert’,” Salvador Vargas said in an exclusive interview with mitú.
Fortunately, Vargas recovered — but he had to wait six whole years and experience personal trauma before being able to claim his moment. In the years since his hospital stay, Vargas has been through a lot — his brother passed away from leukemia in 2017 and he had to live through a global pandemic while recovering from Guillain-Barré.
But Vargas kept his promise to Martin.
On March 29, Coldplay played in Guadalajara. Vargas, who is now a healthy 23-year-old man, attended the concert with a sign that read: “You told me that the next time you want to see me [is] in concert. And here I am.” Vargas also wore a t-shirt with the photo that he took with Chris Martin while he was in the hospital.
According to Vargas, he was in the front row and Martin saw the poster. And while it was Vargas’s dream that Martin would recognize him and pull him up on stage, sadly, that didn’t happen. There is plenty of time for that to happen in the future, however.
Vargas’s story has touched many people on the internet, including the staff of the hospital that he stayed in as a teenager. After hearing the news that Vargas finally got to fulfill his dream of seeing Coldplay in person, Hospital General de México tweeted out a heartwarming message of support for their former patient.
“Patients are the most important thing for us,” wrote CDMX General on Twitter. “When they are discharged, we often do not know where the destination is or what path they will take. Thank you to all the healthcare providers, and also, thank you to the patients and families for their trust.”
