Soccer player Christian Eriksen is to have an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) device fitted, the Danish football federation has said.
Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed on the pitch during the Denmark-Finland Euro 2020 match on Saturday.
“After Christian has been through different heart examinations it has been decided that he should have an ICD,” Doctor Morten Boesen said.
He added that such a device is necessary after a cardiac attack due to rhythm disturbances.
According the UK’s National Health Service online guide: “ICDs are often used as a preventative treatment for people thought to be at risk of cardiac arrest at some point in the future.
“If the ICD senses the heart is beating at a potentially dangerous abnormal rate, it’ll deliver an electrical shock to the heart. This often helps return the heart to a normal rhythm.”
In front of the watching TV audience and the fans in the stadium, teammates and then medics worked to save Eriksen’s life for more than 15 minutes before he was transferred to hospital.
The team doctor said that at one stage Eriksen “was gone,” but the medical staff managed to get his heart restarted using a defibrillator.
Eriksen, Denmark’s star player and one of Europe’s most creative midfielders, was later well enough in hospital to send messages of reassurance to his teammates. He remains in hospital.
His Inter Milan club doctor and the Danish team medics said the cause of the cardiac arrest was a mystery, with the 29-year-old’s fitness and health having been closely monitored for years, as is normal with professional footballers, and having shown no sign of a problem.
(www.newsnow.co.uk)
