CRY - Awareness can prevent tragedy

St. Patrick’s Day is normally a pretty memorable day for most of us here on this island. Oddly enough for such a memorable day many of us might find our memories undermined due to various celebratory activities.

However, I’m pretty sure that many of us who ventured out into the bars the Saturday previous this year will remember the sobering scenes that came from White Hart Lane and onto our TV pub screens. Fabrice Muamba came as close to death as most of us ever will without making the permanent transition to the other side. The images of him on the ground in serious distress shall remain in the minds of all who witnessed for a long time.

Probably the most shocking thing about the incident is that this is not an isolated occurrence.  From the collapse and death of talented Benfica player and Hungarian international Miklós Fehér, to Entourans Intachor whose passing was eerily similar in instance to what happened with Muamba to the untimely deaths of Marc Vivien Foe and Antonio Puerta, it would seem that there is nobody off limits to this tragic affliction. There have been more close calls too with former Irish International, Stoke City and Sunderland left back Clive Clarke’s half time heart attack probably most poignant.

 I’m sure that many of us know of someone personally or know a friend of a friend who has either passed or had a near miss in this manner. Last September, a friend of mine, John Doyle, (27) from Inchicore, collapsed on the pitch while playing in the Leinster League with St Patrick’s Athletic FC.  At the time he had no idea that he had a heart condition.  He was revived by defibrillator and brought to Tallaght Hospital becoming a patient at the Centre for Cardiac Risk in the Young funded by the charity CRY.

“It started off as a normal Sunday morning preparing for a game, having a laugh with team-mates and doing a warm up. Our game was roughly 15 minutes in when I started to struggle breathing,” recalls John. “I started to feel dizzy and I couldn't see properly. I got to my hunkers and signalled to the sideline of my problem and the next thing I remember is being wheeled into a ward in Tallaght hospital later that evening.”  

Prior to that morning John never displayed any symptoms of a heart condition and was a fit and healthy young man. That seems to be the common trait of the victims however.

Eight matches took place on the weekend of 30^th March. Sligo Rovers, Cork City, Drogheda, Wexford, Shelbourne and UCD all agreed to wear t-shirts before their matches to help raise awareness for this cause. St. Patrick’s Athletic players Ger O’Brien and Conor Kenna in particular got fully behind John to support the cause. Ger O’Brien himself underwent a minor procedure to correct a valve problem he had in his heart after it was discovered via screening, making the cause extra personal to him. Without the screening the condition could have and in all probability would have had much more serious ramifications.  

Ger recalls, “On Saturday evening I got a text from Brendan Clarke asking me did I see what had happened to Fabrice Muamba. I was away from the TV so obviously I hadn't. My first reaction was to go on twitter to try to find out what was going on. Going over the timeline I started to realize how serious this was. Like most I’m I was glued to the TV and twitter waiting for some news. First news came in that he was stable then a statement revealed he was critically ill. It looked as if sudden adult death syndrome was about to rear its ugly head again.”

According to the charity organization www.cry.ie “Over 5,000 people suffer sudden cardiac death in Ireland each year, of which 60 to 80 are young people under 35 years of age.” That’s a lot of young people. Young people that but for some simple screening might otherwise survive. So go ahead, click like on your Facebook page or link this article to you timeline. Awareness can prevent disaster and you never know, you might just save a life. Oh, and get screened yourself.

If you would like to support John and many more like him and help a worthy and relevant cause please go to the CRY website, www.cry.ie, click on DONATE NOW.