Slog
News & ArtsWednesday, August 15, 2012
Death Live Through This: No Heartbeat for 78 Minutes
Posted by Charles Mudede on Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 4:16 PM
(CNN) — Devastated, but grateful to be alive — soccer player Fabrice Muamba announced his retirement on Wednesday, five months after suffering a cardiac arrest on the playing field.Fabrice is really a dead man walking.
The 24-year-old, who played for English Premier League club Bolton Wanderers, collapsed during an FA Cup match at Tottenham Hotspur in March.
Medics battled to resuscitate the midfielder in front of the White Hart Lane crowd and it was later revealed the Zaire-born player's heart had stopped beating for 78 minutes.
1
I was watching that game. It took a long time to tell what was going on, but when they started showing the crowd faces we knew he was dead. Normally they want to zoom in on the player's theatrical agony. Not this time. You could see it on the fans' faces and the players' faces. That entire stadium was dead silent for the entire time, until my Tottenham fans started chanting their fallen opponent's name as he was carried out. The game was called, of course. I spent the next hour trying to find news. I'm getting that same sick feeling in my stomach from that day just typing this.
This is why I don't chant "LET HIM DIE" along with the ECS when a player goes down at Sounders games. You don't know, you really don't know.
Best wishes in all your future endeavors, Fabrice.
This is why I don't chant "LET HIM DIE" along with the ECS when a player goes down at Sounders games. You don't know, you really don't know.
Best wishes in all your future endeavors, Fabrice.
9
@8: I had no idea, either. It's astonishing that one could go for 78 minutes with his only blood circulation coming from someone's weight cmpressing your ribcage, and then recover to the point where you could participate in an "informal kick-around" and give a mentally coherent TV interview. Just amazing. Whoever was squishing his chest must have got it just exactly right. After you survive something like that, you have the sensation that the rest of your life is just pure gravy: an unexpected, undeserved, unalloyed pleasure.
10
@9, they had more than compression -- every stadium in the English Football League has paddles now. They hit him many times on the pitch. We didn't see most of them on the TV, thank God. We did see him rolled over from face-down to face-up, which was horrible enough.
12
if they were circulating oxygenated blood through his body and to his brain, he was not dead. he was alive, plenty alive. he's a live man walking, to prove it.
the help they gave him was essentially no different from an artificial heart. they pumped blood through him. he had a functioning heart, and instead of it being his own or an implanted device, it was the crowd of humans who were helping him.
the help they gave him was essentially no different from an artificial heart. they pumped blood through him. he had a functioning heart, and instead of it being his own or an implanted device, it was the crowd of humans who were helping him.
13
I hope he managed what money he has made thus far well, because his career plans are in the toilet. Gravy@9, sure, but every headline I read on his announcement this week include the word Devastated. Poor kid. (at least his life won't be ruined by medical bills - long live Socialized Medicine!)
14
@11 He says in an interview that he remembers up to a couple minutes before he collapsed and then nothing.
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