NHL legend Chris Pronger took to Twitter on Wednesday to share the story of his expertise with commotio cordis, the identical cardiac occasion suffered by Buffalo Bills security Damar Hamlin in early January. (Getty Images)
On Jan. 2, your complete sporting world held its breath when Buffalo Bills security Damar Hamlin collapsed on the sphere throughout a Week 17 matchup with the Cincinnati Bengals.
After tackling Bengals receiver Tee Higgins, Hamlin acquired a shot to the chest that despatched his coronary heart into cardiac arrest. It was believed that Hamlin suffered from a cardiac occasion often called commotio cordis, a uncommon however doubtlessly deadly disruption to regular coronary heart rhythm that outcomes from a powerful blow to the chest. Support from everywhere in the world rushed in as he was administered earlier than being taken to the hospital the place he spent every week recovering.
In solidarity, legendary NHL defenceman Chris Pronger provided an intimate and detailed account of his personal expertise with the phenomenon by a Twitter thread on Wednesday.
On May 10, 1998, Pronger and the St. Louis Blues confronted off towards the Detroit Red Wings within the second spherical of the Stanley Cup playoffs. During the third interval, Pronger blocked a slapshot that hit him within the chest — simply to the left of his coronary heart — and struggled to get to the bench, finally collapsing to the ice in an analogous approach to Hamlin.
“I blacked out whereas on the ice however earlier than passing out I used to be in a position to rise up and stumble ahead a pair steps earlier than collapsing,” mentioned Pronger over Twitter. “When the coach bought me, my eyes had rolled again in my head and my lips had been turning blue. He eliminated my helmet and felt for a pulse.”
Feeling none, the coach started performing chest compressions and CPR, rebooting Pronger’s system and making him the primary athlete to outlive commotio cordis on the time, and solely the fourth particular person to outlive the cardiac occasion recognized to medical doctors as much as that time. After spending the evening within the hospital and the next 24 hours with a coronary heart monitor, he was cleared to play the following recreation.
Here is the video of the incident.
However, there was nonetheless the psychological facet that Pronger struggled with, not understanding if he might play freely and overlook concerning the near-death expertise he had been by mere days in the past, however the overwhelming help he acquired from followers and teammates alike spurred him on to maintain enjoying.
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“As I left the ice from warmup, I believed to myself, ‘how can I not play on this recreation?’ What an surroundings to be part of,” mentioned Pronger. “The roar of the group after I skated onto the ice for the sport was one thing to behold.”
Pronger went on to play greater than 1,100 video games over an 18-year profession and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2015, taking place as one of many hardest gamers in NHL historical past.
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