At 18.13 GMT last Saturday, 43 minutes after kick-off in the FA Cup tie between Bolton Wanderers and Tottenham Hotspur, played at White Hart Lane, north London, home of Spurs, 23-year-old Fabrice Muamba collapsed. As the stadium fell silent and medical staff huddled around him, the match was abandoned. Muamba’s heart stopped beating for 78 minutes.
When Bolton Wanderers star Fabrice Muamba collapsed last Saturday, he came perilously close to death.
The first minutes after Muamba collapsed were crucial. Every minute lost before applying CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation: the urgent and sometimes necessarily savage – it can break ribs – application of downthrusts to the chest to keep oxygen artificially flowing from the heart) is estimated to decrease chances of survival by 10%.
Cardiac arrest, which is what Muamba suffered, is significantly different from a heart attack. The second is usually caused by coronary heart disease, through which a clot starves the heart of blood and oxygen and damages the heart muscle itself. Cardiac arrest, which can be caused by electrocution and the like, but is usually the result of a genetic unhappiness, can affect the healthiest hearts and simply means that they suddenly stop pumping blood properly, the heart’s internal electrical system having become temporarily scrambled: CPR is urgent and further more complex treatment is mandatory.
It didn’t take long, in Muamba’s case, for the CPR to be administered. According to Amy Lawrence, who had been covering the match for the Observer, the reason everyone knew something was wrong was that Muamba, though out of the current run of play, suddenly “fell like a tree trunk. He didn’t put his arms out to break his fall, or anything, he just dropped.” It was seconds before other players noticed. Rafael van der Vaart, a Spurs player, was the first to do so, and frantic signalling to the pitchside medical teams brought on the men in green.
Doctors have described Fabrice Muamba’s progress since his cardiac arrest during a match on Saturday as “miraculous”. The Bolton star’s heart stopped beating for 78 minutes after his collapse but now he is talking and joking with visitors.
Bolton Wanderers midfielder Fabrice Muamba did not respond to 15 defibrillator shocks and was in effect dead for 78 minutes before his heart started beating again, doctors who treated him have revealed.
He has improved significantly since suffering a cardiac arrest during an English FA Cup match last Saturday but is still in intensive care with his condition described as serious.
Muamba is responding appropriately to questions though, speaking in both French and English, and has been joking with some of his many visitors.
Bolton’s club doctor, Jonathan Tobin, spoke for the first time on Wednesday, talking reporters through the severity of Muamba’s collapse and the frantic efforts made to save his life.
Tobin said he and the other paramedics who rushed onto the field treated Muamba for a total of 48 minutes on the pitch and en route to London’s Chest Hospital, but it took a further 30 minutes to restart the midfielder’s heart.
“In effect he was dead in that time,” Dr. Tobin said. “Fabrice was in a type of cardiac arrest where the heart is showing lots of electrical activity but no muscular activity.
“I can’t begin to explain the pressure that was there,” he said. “This isn’t somebody that’s gone down in the street or been brought into accident and emergency.
Dr. Andrew Deaner suggested Muamba be transferred to the London Chest Hospital, where he works, and administered vital drugs to the player in the ambulance.
He says the fact Muamba is responding appropriately to questions and is able to make jokes within five days of suffering such major heart trauma is nothing short of astonishing.
“If you’re going to use the term miraculous, I guess it could be used here,” he said. Deaner also revealed he had been in to see Muamba a few hours after he woke up.
“I whispered into his ear ‘What’s your name?’,” he explained. When Muamba said his name Deaner continued: “I said ‘I understand you’re a very good footballer’. And he said ‘I try.’
“He’s made a remarkable recovery so far. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. As things stand, I think his life is not in danger at this time. His neurological function is looking very good but it is early days.”
