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Through two decades as a CFL official and three as a Winnipeg police officer, Al Bradbury dealt with his share of nastiness.

But a recent battle with COVID-19 put him face to face with his mortality.

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And with a good friend battling the virus in ICU for more than a week now, Bradbury wants everyone to know this isn’t a game.

“The period where you started thinking about your own mortality was after we were told I was positive,” Bradbury, 55, told the Winnipeg Sun on Monday.

“I dodged a lot of things for 30-plus years as a police officer, even just not getting blood on me and things like that, with diseases. And then I get it on a cruise ship? Wow.”

What was supposed to be the cruise of a lifetime for Bradbury, his wife, Martha, and another Winnipeg couple — marking Bradbury’s retirement after nearly 33 years as a cop — turned into the escape of their lives and a bout with the worst illness he’s ever experienced.