‘I FELT DIZZY, I FELT MYSELF FALLING’:
BACK FROM THE DEAD FOOTBALLER FABRICE MUAMBA RELIVES THE TERRIFYING MOMENT HE COLLAPSED ON THE PITCH
Millions of fans feared for the worst when footballer Fabrice Muamba collapsed unconscious on the pitch in a match last month. Now making a full recovery, Muamba has spoken for the first time about the terrifying ordeal in which he says he ‘died’ for 78 minutes.
The Bolton midfielder, 24, insisted he had not felt unwell before his heart stopped and he crashed to the ground in the 41st minute of a televised FA Cup tie at Tottenham on March 17.
Muamba was effectively dead for over an hour and it took 15 defibrillator shocks - two on the pitch and 13 in the ambulance - to get his heart beating again.
Speaking to The Sun, he said: ‘I ran upfield to try and get on the end of a cross from Martin Petrov on our left wing and as I ran back into midfield I felt very slightly dizzy.
‘It wasn’t a normal dizziness - it was a kind of surreal feeling like I was running along inside someone else’s body.
‘Then I made another burst forward and noticed it again. Then my vision started to go. I had no pain whatsoever. No clutching at my chest. Then I started to see double. It felt almost like a dream. There was no one anywhere near me when I started to feel myself falling. The last thing I remember was our defender Dedryck Boyata screaming at me to get back and help out in defence. I just felt myself falling then I felt two thumps as my head hit the ground in front of me then that was it. Blackness, nothing. I was dead.’
Muamba told the newspaper he believed his survival was thanks to his prayers to God, saying: ‘What happened to me was really more than a miracle.’
He revealed how he had asked God for protection before the match, while on the phone to his father - something he said he does before every game.
And in the latest twist in his remarkable recovery, Muamba hopes to make an emotional return to Bolton’s Reebok Stadium on May 2, when his team-mates will be facing Tottenham.
Now back home after an extraordinary fight for his life in the London Chest Hospital, the former England Under 21 international - born in Zaire but raised in Britain from the age of 11 after his family fled their homeland as political refugees - hopes he will be able to attend one of Bolton’s two remaining home games.
Those games are against Spurs in a Wednesday evening kick-off on May 2 or West Bromwich Albion four days later.