Children, Sports and Cardiac Arrest

From a young age, society is actively encouraging more and more children to take part in sports and fitness activities to help them to lead a healthy lifestyle and instil a healthy competitive nature from their early years.

But with children susceptible to cardiac arrest just like the rest of us, we need to make sure that our children are protected when they’re playing sports.

Through our growing years, we are told how important it is to lead a healthy lifestyle and to take part in sports as part of personal development and to keep our bodies in a healthy shape. But when we see sports stars suffering cardiac arrests in the news, it’s easy to sit back and say that perhaps strenuous activity can cause us harm.

Of course it can, when you play sports you are at an increased risk of incurring an injury, but to think that doing something good for your body could lead to cardiac arrest is something quite confusing and a little alarming.

But in truth it’s not sports that lead to cardiac arrest, but the highlighting of a cardiac abnormality that perhaps was not apparent before that causes a cardiac arrest. Sport simply plays the medium in which heart abnormalities can come to light, but unfortunately they were there all along.

When somebody suffers a cardiac arrest, the chain of survival is the most important procedure to stick to. Immediate access is imperative, for every passing minute without treatment; a patient loses 10% of their survival chances.

Children are vulnerable to cardiac arrest just as much as anyone else but during sports and physical activities they are also vulnerable to commotio cordis.

A condition which primarily affects young children due to their developing hearts and a softer chest wall, commotio cordis can occur when an object strikes a sharp or blunt blow to a child’s chest.

Currently in the UK, 270 children suffer cardiac arrests in school whilst 12 people under the age of 35 die every week due to a sudden cardiac arrest.

Now, this is not to say that it is likely that a child will suffer a cardiac arrest, far from it, but having the necessary resources in place is the only preparation we can undertake and this means have at least one defibrillator available in all schools and having members of staff trained to provide emergency CPR and to use a lifesaving AED.

No matter how small the risk might be, having a defibrillator there ensures that you, the school, sports club, leisure centre or wherever have paid due diligence and provided the very best equipment available for a cardiac emergency.

So after reading the information and you’ve listened to the recommendations, let’s put this into perspective. It is, unfortunately, not uncommon for professional and amateur sportsmen and women to suffer cardiac arrests whilst playing sports and they have to pass rigorous testing and training to compete in their sports.

It can happen to anyone.

And whilst there has been a call for more cardiac screening in a bid to prevent/reduce the number of cardiac arrests seen in sports, this year alone we have seen a number of sports stars suffer mid game cardiac arrests.

Rugby league star Danny Jones collapsed after being replaced during a League 1 match earlier this year, and after receiving extensive treatment pitch side and by the London Ambulance Service, they were unable to save him.

The previous week, Belgian footballer Gregory Mertens suffered a cardiac arrest whilst playing a reserve match in his home country. He collapsed just 15 minutes into a game against KRC Genk whilst playing for Sporting Lokeren and, after initially being put into a medically induced coma, sadly passed away.

And whilst most professional athletes will go through cardiac screening at some point during their respective sporting seasons, tests are not nearly carried out enough and amateur/semi professional sportsmen and women often do not receive the same level of medical treatment as professionals prior to taking part in competitive sports.

This means the availability of a defibrillator is crucial as it forms the only way to treat a cardiac arrest along with the combined application of cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

If an AED is used and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is performed within 3-5 minutes of collapse, survival chances increase from 6% to 74%. If treatment is provided within 60 seconds, survival chances reach 90%.

However it is not all doom and gloom for sports stars who suffer cardiac arrests, if treatment can be provided quickly, it is known for athletes, in some cases, to return to their sports after treatment.

German footballer Daniel Engelbrecht, who plays for Stuttgarter Kickers in Germany’s third tier returned to action late last year after suffering a cardiac arrest during a match against Erfurt in 2013. He received immediate on-the-pitch treatment and was resuscitated before being transported to hospital.

He now plays with an implanted defibrillator next to his heart after it was discovered he had been suffering from an inflamed heart muscle along with an abnormal heart rhythm.

Cardiac screening is a simple process which can help to identify disease, abnormalities, electrical faults or any other medical conditions which could be affected a person’s heart in apparently health people. Screening should be enforced at every level of sports but that sadly is not the case, which is especially sad since your first heart scans are carried out before you’re born.

During routine anomaly scans at approximately 20 weeks during pregnancy, the heart of every baby is scanned and if any early signs of abnormalities are spotted a fetal echo can be carried out.

This shows that we can be prepared as a society and we can look after our child’s heart before they are even born, so if we can be prepared then – why should we not be prepared once they are here and enjoying life?

We can start by ensuring all schools, sports clubs, leisure centres have defibrillators installed to help in those rare occasions when someone suffers a cardiac arrest. No matter of their age, gender, ethnicity, profession, pro sports athlete, amateur sports athlete – they will need a defibrillator and immediate CPR to survive a cardiac arrest.

Let’s go from there.