Muamba suffered cardiac arrest nine years prior to the incident in Copenhagen
Fabrice Muamba has described watching Christian Eriksen’s collapse in Euro 2020 as ‘heartbreaking’ having suffered the same fate nine years before at White Hart Lane.
Eriksen collapsed during Denmark’s opening group game against Finland in the summer, before paramedics saved his life as his Danish teammates former a circle around him to create a layer of privacy.
The playmaker has been training alone at his old Danish team, Odense Boldklub, as he weighs up his future. Having been fitted with an ICD, he was forced to leave Inter Milan due to Serie A regulations.
For Muamba, the distressing incident in the summer “brought back memories, feelings that you’d almost suppressed for a long time,” the former Bolton midfielder told JOE.
“It just brought back memories, feelings that you’d almost suppressed for a long time.”@fmuamba6 recalls how Christian Eriksen's collapse at the Euros brought back painful memories of his own cardiac arrest pic.twitter.com/d2pJ1GIc3y
— FootballJOE (@FootballJOE) November 30, 2021
“To see a fellow professional player go through that situation… [I was] heartbroken. The best thing that came out of the Euros is that Eriksen is alive, is healthy.
“We saw the importance of having a defibrillator by the pitch,” he said, also referencing a recent incident at St James’ Park when a Newcastle fan collapsed before players alerted the referee.
Muamba is speaking on behalf of Virgin Media, as it launches one of the UK’s largest ever mobile defibrillator roll out programmes, through its life-saving partnership with the British Heart Foundation.
“It’s given me the opportunity with Virgin Media to raise awareness with regard to the campaign that we’re doing,” he explains.
Virgin Media have given 500 front-line staff CPR and defibrillator training, alongside portable defibrillators for each of their company vehicles.
