8 replies to this topic

[VictorBjoerk]

http
://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?i...=ESPNHeadlines


"New York Rangers prospect Alexei Cherepanov suffered an apparent heart attack during a game Monday night in Russia, collapsing on the bench, and died. He was 19."



"We are extremely saddened by the tragic passing of Alexei," Rangers president and general manager Glen Sather said in a statement. "On behalf of the New York Rangers organization, I would like to extend our deepest sympathies to his family. Alexei was an intelligent, energetic young man, with tremendous talent and an extremely bright future."



How the .... can you get a heart attack when you are only 19 years old?

Incidences like this one really creates horror, It shows that you can't prevent heart attacks even if you live a healthy althletic lifestyle...

Edited by VictorBjoerk, 13 October 2008 - 10:05 PM.

[VictorBjoerk]

What could have caused such a thing? I mean it can't be lifestyle-related or "bad genes"......

[FunkOdyssey]

Generally when this happens at such a young age it is the result of an undiagnosed heart defect or something along those lines. Freakish things like this happen, but are exceedingly rare. If it wasn't exceedingly rare, it wouldn't have made headlines. Its tragic, but should not "create horror" when put in proper perspective.

[Johan]

I wonder what his diet looked like, and if it could have played a role in hastening the process?

[NoDoubt]

Generally when this happens at such a young age it is the result of an undiagnosed heart defect or something along those lines. Freakish things like this happen, but are exceedingly rare. If it wasn't exceedingly rare, it wouldn't have made headlines. Its tragic, but should not "create horror" when put in proper perspective.

In fact this is not that rare in top level sports.
Only talking about soccer in Europa, I can remind about 10 heart attacks for players under 25 within the past few years.
Although it is very difficult to prove, side effects of doping may be strongly suspected.

[niner]

I concur that it's not *that* rare. It happened to my coach when I was a sophomore in college. He was 27 at the time. That's not 19, but still... I've read several accounts of this sort of thing with very young athletes in the news just in the past year or two. There's been some debate, somewhere in Europe I think, about whether or not student athletes should be screened for some sort of rare heart defect that causes this sort of thing. I think they decided it wasn't worth it. I don't think that this really has a lot of bearing on normal people

[Lazarus Long]

From what I read another reason he died was the distance and time it took to get him adequate modern emergency care. His condition was catastrophic but advanced EMT's can make very big difference in these situations and the Russians didn't even have a team physician present from either side.

When we had a student literally brake his neck and back in a potentially catastrophic football injury last year at our local high school game, the patient was stabilized and prepped by local EMT's before a chopper arrived inside 10 to 12 minutes of the original injury. He was med-evact airborne out within 3 minutes of the chopper arriving over the field and in a critical care unit within 15 minutes of departure. He had no permanent loss of function.

It is all about time sometimes.

From what I read the Russian athletic officials didn't even get medical assistance to the player for 25 minutes and that is 20 - 24 minutes too late for these kind of events. There always needs to be a competent and equipped EMT Team in place for these kind of contact sports, especially at the professional level and actually there damn well should have been at least one trained athletic physician.

I bet we see more reforms in Russian sports now that they have the money and the news.

[Shepard]

I wonder what his diet looked like, and if it could have played a role in hastening the process?

I seriously doubt it, in a young athlete. I agree with the notion of heart defect or maybe high amounts of beta-agonists or something similar.

[VictorBjoerk]

so the heart attack must be due to some defect you've had since birth, I mean it really can't be possible to get a heart attack through atherosclerosis when you are 19.