I DIED FOR 78 MINUTES BUT MEDICS SAVED ME... NOW WE MUST SAVE THEM
After his cardiac arrest on Tottenham’s pitch, Fabrice Muamba is living proof of NHS miracles
Fabrice MuaMba is living proof of the NHS’s capacity to perform miracles, and we cannot emphasise the word ‘living’ enough.
For 78 minutes on Saturday March 17, 2012, Muamba was technically dead, his heart no longer beating after he suffered a cardiac arrest on the White Hart Lane pitch.
The midfielder felt ‘perfectly normal’ up until that moment. No chest pains, no shortness of breath, no reason for him to trouble bolton Wanderers’ team doctor Jonathan Tobin.
Then as half-time approached, his vision blurred and he could see two Scott Parkers, and a shout from defender Dedryck boyata asking him to track back would go unanswered. Within seconds, there was only darkness. Muamba fell to the floor in front of 35,000 spectators.
‘it was out of the blue,’ he says, looking back now. ‘i’d never had any issues with my heart. No problems with my health. it was a normal day. Then i collapsed.’
robust cPr can break ribs but it was necessary. So were the 15 defibrillation shocks, as club medics, London ambulance Service staff and Dr andrew Deaner — the cardiologist and Tottenham Hotspur fan who convinced stewards to let him on the field — fought to save his life.
The lights came back on at the London chest Hospital. His heart began beating, and Muamba awoke on the Monday beside two nurses. He spent 30 nights in their care and got to meet Dr Deaner, who whispered in his ear: ‘i understand you’re a very good footballer.’ Muamba, showing no signs of brain damage, replied: ‘i try.’
His debt of gratitude is shared by many every Thursday at 8pm, when we clap our carers.
‘To applaud, it is a great sign of our appreciation,’ says Muamba, now 32 and a father of three boys — Joshua, 11, Matthew, six, and Gabriel, three — with wife, Shauna. ‘but once this thing has died down, they need more. This service needs looking after. They were talking about cutting their funds. They need more money. They need pay rises.
‘When you’ve been in hospital, you realise. i got to see how much these doctors and nurses worked, how much they wanted to look after their patients.
‘That day at that stadium turned out to be the last time i played professional football. but they looked after me.
‘right now, they are working above and beyond. The total deaths is staggering, but you have to imagine the silly number of doctors and nurses in hospitals who are keeping people safe.
‘Nurses are dying because of this pandemic. i had somebody in my room, all day, every day. The moment you come out of hospital, you ask yourself what the Government is doing to help these people? We are applauding
them but they need to see it financially.’ covid-19 is the greatest challenge the NHS has faced in its history. During lockdown, Muamba has been staying inside, home-schooling his boys and bingeing on Netflix
— he recommends The Last
Dance, a documentary on Michael Jordan’s chicago bulls team, and Spanish crime drama
Money Heist.
raising funds for NHS charities has been a priority, too — he recently played in a live-streamed FiFa 20 tournament.
‘They need more,’ says Muamba, speaking to a newspaper whose charitable campaign, Mail Force, saw more than 20 tons of PPe flown from Shanghai to London to aid our carers. ‘With them, a human’s life is reliant upon their knowledge and how they react. Whereas we go play football to enjoy ourselves and entertain.’
Muamba misses playing, of course, though he prefers to be here, breathing, living.
‘everything else is secondary,’ says the 32-year-old, who grew up in Walthamstow, east London, having left the Democratic republic of congo at age 11 after his father sought political asylum.
‘i grew up liking football, but i didn’t know i wanted to become a footballer when i came to england in 1999. i was 14 when i joined arsenal. i never got scouted. My mate, who was already at the academy, told his coaches i was decent, so he asked me to come to training with him. That’s how i was given a trial. but i wanted to make sure i got an education, in case the game did not work out.’
Muamba got ten GcSes but, at arsenal, comparisons with Patrick Vieira were being made.
His family were present to see arsene Wenger hand him his debut at Highbury in a 2005 League cup win over reading. He spent two years at birmingham city — the first on loan from the Gunners — then, in 2008, moved to bolton for £5million.
He is following the news that Premier League clubs are in talks to return to playing, possibly as soon as next month. Yet, this could place a strain on an already overworked NHS if players require ambulance assistance or hospital treatment. Muamba did in 2012, after all, so he is unsure on its return. ‘We need them more than ever now,’ he says. ‘The priority has to be people’s health. You cannot go rushing into playing football and putting people at risk.’
eight years on from that day at White Hart Lane, he struggles to find the words to sum it up.
‘Grateful,’ he says, three times, before divulging that Dr Deaner should not have been there that day: ‘He didn’t even have a ticket — he was using his nephew’s!’
it was Dr Deaner who suggested they take Muamba to the London chest Hospital, almost seven miles away, rather than the nearer North Middlesex. it was decided he would have a greater chance of survival there.
Muamba, a deeply religious man who values his faith, adds: ‘i believe things happen for a reason.’
Some say the word ‘miracle’ is overused in modern football. Liverpool come back from 3-0 down in istanbul: miracle. Leicester city win the Premier League title: miracle.
but in Muamba’s case, miracle is the only word for it. He is alive today because medics refused to give up on him.
Now in this time of crisis, he says we cannot give up on them.