After more than a year of delays, the Euro 2020 tournament arrived this week with plenty of fanfare and excitement, but on Saturday all of that quickly went away during as scary a situation as you can have in a sporting event when Denmark star Christian Eriksen collapsed on the pitch.
Eriksen received medical attention for a significant amount of time and the medical staff had a defibrillator out to resuscitate the star midfielder before he was taken off on a stretcher and sent to a local hospital. Happily, Eriksen survived the incident and was awake, alert, and stable when he arrived at the hospital, but the Denmark team doctor confirmed on Sunday that he had suffered a cardiac arrest and had to be revived on the pitch, via ESPN.
“He was gone, and we did cardiac resuscitation. It was a cardiac arrest,” Morten Boesen said. “How close were we [to losing Eriksen]? I don’t know.
“We got him back after one defibrillator, so that’s quite fast. I’m not a cardiologist, so the details I will leave to the experts at the hospital.”
It was a horrifying scene and that the match was resumed later that evening was a decision that many found questionable, with Finland beating Denmark 1-0 with everyone still, understandably, shaken. That Eriksen survived is obviously great news, but it’s a sight that will stay with everyone on that field and watching in person or at home forever.