On December 16,
Bournemouth
played
against
Luton Town
on matchday 17 of the
Premier League
.
It was just another English league game, but suddenly
in the 59th minute
, Hatters captain
Tom Lockyer
collapsed
in the middle of the field
.
The doctors quickly assisted him, took him out on a stretcher and the game was suspended.
He had suffered cardiac arrest
.
“I was running to the halfway line and I got really dizzy. I remember thinking 'I'll be fine in a second' and in the end it wasn't like that
," the Luton Town captain told
Sky Sports
in the preview of the match with
Manchester United
on matchday 25.
His heart stopped for two and a half minutes
.
The Welsh player said that thanks to the quick intervention of the doctors he was able to save himself:
“I needed the defibrillator to revive me.
Many thanks to the paramedics and team doctors involved, because without them I would not be here
. ”
The diagnosis was an episode of
atrial fibrillation
, which occurs when
the upper part of the heart beats four times faster
than it should.
Five days after the scare at
Vitality Stadium
, he was discharged after a successful procedure to have him fitted with an
implantable cardioverter-defibrillator
.
This is not the first time that
Lockyer has collapsed on a playing field, a similar thing happened in May during the victory in the
Football League Championship
final
that gave them promotion to the
Premier
.
"Last time I woke up almost from a dream, this time I woke up out of nowhere. I was a little disoriented, I couldn't speak or move, I was just trying to understand what was happening
. "
The most shocking thing about the defender's story is that he thought
he could die
at that very moment and not being able to move or respond seemed surreal to him.
He is still undergoing more tests so
his return to the courts is an enigma
.
The club's doctors along with the paramedics assisting Lockyer.
Photo: Reuters.
Eriksen, Blind and Wyke: similar cases
Lockyer
looked for other players who had heart conditions similar to his, such as
Christian Eriksen
,
Daley Blind
and
Charlie Wyke
.
"Something common to all of them was that they took their time to process what happened. I don't know if I have processed it, but maybe because we, as athletes, are able to face things in a different way and compartmentalize
. "
The image of
Christian Eriksen
surrounded by his teammates during
Euro 2020
traveled the world.
The current
Manchester United
player had collapsed on the playing field after suffering
cardiac arrest that stopped his heart for five minutes
.
The player had to wait
18 months to play again
.
Daley Blind
's case
is very similar to that of the
Welsh player
because when he was at
Ajax
he suffered two cardiac arrests.
After the first one they put a defibrillator on him and
eight months later he collapsed again but thanks to the defibrillator he was saved
.
In November 2021,
Charlie Wyke
suffered cardiac arrest at a
Wigan Athletic
training session and his heart stopped for four minutes.
After ten months the player returned to the playing field
.
“We will be attentive to what the doctors and specialists indicate, but if there was a possibility that I could play again, and I am not going to do anything against their recommendations, then I would love to,” added
the
Luton Town
captain. .
Tom Lockyer marking Raheem Sterling.
Photo: AFP.
At this moment
Lockyer
sees the possibility of playing again as something very distant because
he is focused on the birth of his baby
and
finishing his medical studies
.