Here is some history on young athletes and heart trouble:
Sudden cardiac death was found to be the most frequent medical cause of sudden death in athletes, according to a pre-COVID 2016 study by a group of Massachusetts General Hospital physicians.
A study of sudden death in soccer players worldwide from 2014 to 2018 found 617 players from 67 countries who suffered cardiac incidents, with only 142 of them surviving.
There are collections online listing a wide variety of young athletes who have died from cardiac incidents over recent decades. They include cases like basketball player Hank Gathers in 1990, figure skater Sergei Grinkov in 1995, baseball player Darryl Kile in 2002, marathoner Ryan Shay in 2007, and basketball players Robert Traylor in 2011 and Fab Melo in 2017.
The Dayton area is not immune, having lost former Springfield Catholic and NBA basketball player Jason Collier in 2005, and University of Dayton basketball players Chris Daniels (1996) and Steve McElvene (2016) to cardiac deaths.
Credit: JENNI GIRTMAN
Credit: JENNI GIRTMAN
On the optimistic side, there have been many players who have suffered cardiac incidents but have survived.
Christian Eriksen, one of the world’s best soccer players, collapsed on the field while playing for Denmark in the 2021 European Championships. He was revived on the field and is back competing today. The same happened in 2020 to then-University of Florida basketball player Keyontae Johnson, who is now playing in the NBA. And multiple NHL hockey players who collapsed during games (Jiri Fischer, Rich Peverley and others) survived their cardiac incidents.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
About the Author
