Pope Fran­cis’ med­ical team briefly con­sid­ered sus­pend­ing treat­ment af­ter a Feb. 28 breath­ing cri­sis but in­stead de­cid­ed on an ag­gres­sive course that put his or­gans at risk, the doc­tor co­or­di­nat­ing the pope’s hos­pi­tal care said in an in­ter­view pub­lished Tues­day.

Dr. Ser­gio Al­fieri said the 88-year-old pon­tiff and peo­ple close to him alike un­der­stood “that he might not sur­vive the night,’’ af­ter the bron­chospasm at­tack dur­ing which the pope in­haled vom­it.

“We need­ed to choose whether to stop and let him go, or to push it and at­tempt with all of the pos­si­ble drugs and the treat­ments, tak­ing the very high risk of dam­ag­ing oth­er or­gans,’’ Al­fieri told told the Mi­lan dai­ly Cor­riere del­la Sera. “In the end, that is the path we chose.”