Life-Saving Lessons from Christian Eriksen’s Cardiac Arrest

My teenage son is a huge fan of European professional soccer. So on June 12, I was watching – along with millions of people around the world – the Denmark vs. Finland game that none of us will ever forget: In the first half of the game, Christian Eriksen, a 29-year-old soccer star, stumbled and fell face down.

His heart had stopped pumping blood. He was in cardiac arrest.

Within seconds, a medic was performing chest compressions. Eriksen’s heart was then given a bolt of electricity from an AED (automated external defibrillator). After several nail-biting minutes, medics took Eriksen off the pitch on a stretcher. He waved to fans as he left.

All of this was caught on camera. While it was traumatic to watch, it taught us two powerful lessons, says cardiologist Pamela Mason, MD:

1. Cardiac arrests can happen without warning, regardless of whether the person is young or older and regardless of their health condition.
2. Survival is possible with appropriate and quick therapy. Hands-only chest compressions do keep people alive.

Cardiac Arrest: Major Cause of Preventable Deaths

More than 475,000 Americans die each year from sudden cardiac arrest.

“Christian Eriksen survived, probably without any injury, because paramedics and trainers responded immediately. But what those trained professionals did is the same thing that Jane or Joe public, or any bystander, can do,” says emergency medicine physician William J. Brady, MD.

Cardiac Arrest vs. Heart Attack

You might confuse cardiac arrest with a heart attack. A heart attack happens when the heart muscle is damaged because of a blocked blood vessel. This can trigger a fatal cardiac arrest.

“Starving the heart muscle of blood can induce a dangerous arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat). People will say, ‘A person died suddenly of a heart attack,’ but they actually died from a cardiac arrest,” Mason explains.

What is Ejection Fraction, and Why Does it Matter?

Those most at risk for a sudden cardiac arrest have a low ejection fraction — a measure of the pumping strength of the heart. “A normal ejection fraction is 55% to 60%. When patients get down to 35%, we worry they are at risk for sudden cardiac arrest,” Mason says.

“It’s easy to measure an ejection fraction and determine if they could benefit from an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD),” she adds. This device sends an electrical shock to the heart if it stops beating.

“At UVA Health, we have a team of doctors who are experts in implanting these devices and following these patients over time,” Mason says. “Our device clinic operates five days a week and is staffed by nurses, specially certified in device management and programming.”

Why Did Christian Eriksen Come Close to Death?

“The vast majority who experience a cardiac arrest would be people we would expect: They have a prior history of heart attack or heart failure,” Mason says. “When we see young people have a cardiac arrest, they typically have an undiagnosed cardiac condition or have some sort of genetic abnormality that runs in families.”

Ventricular fibrillation, a type of heart rhythm disruption, occurs when the electrical signals that make the heart pump become rapid and malfunction. This triggered Eriksen’s cardiac arrest.

“With a ventricular fibrillation, there is almost never any warning. You can be going along just fine, playing a soccer match. Then, suddenly your heart’s electrical signals malfunction,” explains Mason, who specializes in heart rhythm disorders.

Underlying genetic conditions can cause:

• Dangerous structural changes to the heart
• Disruptions to the electrical signaling