Wasfy said that, although one in 50,000 college athletes suffers cardiac arrest, the rate among men’s basketball players is one in 9,000. In 1990, Loyola Marymount forward Hank Gathers, who was Black, died after suffering cardiac arrest on the court. Wasfy praised USC’s apparent preparedness and quickness of action once their star freshman went into cardiac arrest. The second is that such events can emphasize the importance to any athletic organization of having plans in place for handling cardiac arrest. “But the key step," Wasfy said, “is having a coaching staff and a training staff well-versed in what sudden cardiac arrest looks like.

Source: Wall Street Journal July 26, 2023 15:23 UTC