Danish doctor confirms Christian Eriksen was ‘gone’ after cardiac arrest
Denmark’s team doctor Morten Boesen has confirmed Christian Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest and that “he was gone” prior to being resuscitated.
Eriksen collapsed on Saturday during the first half of Denmark’s Euro 2020 clash against Finland. He subsequently received lengthy treatment and went to hospital. However, the football world breathed a sigh of relief when it was confirmed that he was in a stable condition. The match also resumed, with Finland taking a 1-0 win.
At a press conference arranged by the Danish Football Federation on Sunday afternoon, Boesen said: “He was gone. We did cardiac resuscitation, it was a cardiac arrest.
“How close were we to losing him? I don’t know, but we got him back after one defib, so that’s quite fast.”
Boesen added: “We don’t have any explanation why it happened. The details about what happened I am not quite sure of because I am not a cardiologist, I will leave that to the experts. I didn’t see it live, only on screens afterwards.”
The team doctor revealed that Denmark’s players and staff were visited by a psychologist on Saturday night, and in hindsight feels the game should not have resumed.
“I don’t think the right decision was to play the game,” Boesen said.
“We have had help from a psychological point of view at the hotel last night.
“Everyone expressed their feelings and how they saw the situation, and everyone was pleased we did this and talked it through.
“We really appreciated the professional help we have had from the outside.”
Denmark manager Kasper Hjulmand agreed that the match should not have been completed after the incident, and that the squad will try to use what happened as motivation for their next game against Belgium on Thursday.
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“No we should not have played,” said Hjulmand. “We will try tomorrow to establish normality as much as possible. Players have different reactions to shocks and trauma but we will try to get back to normal as much as possible.
“I get the feelings from the players that maybe the time is too short to try to play football again, but maybe we can use it as a force to get together and try to go out and do our best in the next match.
“We will see if we can get ourselves together and play for Christian.”
Denmark play Belgium on Thursday in their second Group B game.
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