Text/Sun Chuanfang, Contributing Writer of CC Intelligence Bureau of Phoenix.com
Key Takeaways:
1. On June 30, 17-year-old Chinese national badminton player Zhang Zhijie suddenly fainted and had convulsions during the Asian Youth Badminton Championships. Although he was taken to the hospital for emergency treatment, Zhang Zhijie unfortunately passed away that night. Domestic first aid experts have questioned that there were key technical errors on the part of the on-site emergency team, which may have ultimately led to the death.
2. In the past 20 years, hundreds of athletes have died suddenly at the competition site or on the sports field, and the causes of tragedy are often closely related to heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, etc. Under long-term high-intensity training, athletes can be stressed and cause physical performance and underlying diseases. However, due to the strong physical function of athletes, some diseases are difficult to detect in the early stage. In order to ensure safety, sports venues should strengthen the construction of medical security system, including improving the speed of on-site emergency response, improving medical equipment and drug allocation, etc.; And do a good job in athlete health management, including regular physical examinations, genetic testing and other preventive measures, as soon as possible to identify potential health risks.
3. Sudden death in sports occurs not only in professional athletes, but also in ordinary gym people, such as running in the school playground and sudden death from night running. Members of the public should take care to avoid excessive exercise or exercise in an inappropriate environment when participating in physical activities; For high-risk groups, strenuous exercise should be avoided and a strict physical examination should be carried out before exercise.
The second Chinese 17-year-old talented athlete died suddenly, and the scene was delayed by two minutes.
Following the sudden death of Qing Wenyi, a 17-year-old swimming champion at the Youth Games, China's second outstanding 17-year-old athlete died suddenly after fainting on the field.
On June 30, Zhang Zhijie, a player of the Chinese national youth badminton team, suddenly fainted on the court when he participated in the last group stage of the team stage of the Asian Youth Badminton Championships in Indonesia against the Japanese team. After being rescued by the medical department of the organizing committee and local hospitals, he passed away at 23:20 local time on June 30.
The coach immediately went to check, but there was no sign of the doctor at this time.
After waiting for nearly half a minute, the medical team at the scene arrived late, and the event doctor and medical team rescued him. Zhang fainted two minutes before being taken to the hospital by ambulance.
Many domestic and foreign fans said in the comment section that this sudden fall and convulsions may be acute sudden cardiac death, and the doctor's speed is too slow, wasting a precious minute, and questioning whether they have mastered first aid common sense like cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
On July 1, the Asian Badminton Federation and the Indonesian Badminton Association issued an announcement: "The world badminton world has lost a talented player. ”
After learning the bad news, Zhang Zhijie's family was grief-stricken, and his sister posted: "He was only 17 years old, and after a long wait for medical staff to arrive after falling to the ground on the field, you said that the treatment would be carried out as soon as possible, and that the local medical conditions were too poor, so how could I accept it." "Expressed dissatisfaction with the local treatment.
Dr. Lu Xiao of the Emergency Department of the Second Hospital of Zhejiang University questioned: "After watching the video of the athlete falling to the ground, I am extremely distressed. To tell you what I thought as an emergency physician when I saw an athlete fall to the ground: such a young athlete dies suddenly, and there are obvious convulsions before the sudden death, and from my point of view, the patient may have a high probability of malignant arrhythmia.
Then the key to first aid is that the medical personnel or others judge the situation at the first time, and on-site cardiopulmonary resuscitation, get the AED and defibrillation, instead of putting the patient on a stretcher and leaving, the patient can be resuscitated while sending to the hospital for first aid, and even ecmo (an artificial life support system), there is still a great probability of being able to rescue back.
The report said that he was sent to the hospital within two minutes, but I don't know if there was first aid at the scene (I didn't see it in the video); First aid at the scene is crucial to the patient's survival and subsequent brain resuscitation (whether he can wake up).
From the perspective of what I saw in the video, the Indonesian side did not do a good job in terms of on-site security for sports events (I don't know if it was professional medical personnel or volunteers from the stadium who went in at the scene), and there may be insufficient medical security preparations, and we may have done some work at the stadium that we didn't see or know; I remember communicating with emergency department experts in Indonesia last month, and their first aid level is indeed not as high as that of our first-tier cities in China.
Medical insurance is very important for major sports events, and I have also been involved in the medical insurance of several major events, and I will develop many plans including emergency handling procedures. Of course, I still have to say that the diversity of diseases, everyone is different, and the treatment effect of the same disease is different for everyone, but the first time of treatment is more important than anything else. ”
▎Zhang Zhijie was born in Jiaxing in 2007 and will enter the national youth team in 2023. He has won the 2022 National U Series Badminton Competition U15-17 Finals 15-year-old group men's singles champion, the 2023 National Youth Badminton Championships Group B men's singles champion and men's team champion, the 2024 Netherlands Youth Badminton International Men's Singles Champion, and the 2024 National Youth Badminton Championships Group B men's team champion.
In the past 20 years, dozens of athletes have died suddenly at the competition site and on the sports field!
According to incomplete statistics, in the past 20 years, at least dozens of athletes have died suddenly on the sports field.
And those shocking moments sometimes happen before our eyes: on the evening of January 2, 2023, millions of Americans witnessed live television the 24-year-old Damar Hamlin of the Buffalo Bills team falling to the ground after completing a tackle.
On June 26, 2003, Vivianfo, an international player of the Cameroon national football team, suddenly fell in the 72nd minute of the semi-final of the Confederations Cup against Colombia, swallowed his tongue and died instantly. , an American volleyball player who is well-known in China, died suddenly on the court in 1986 due to a heart attack.
In 2001, Zhu Gang, a national player of the Chinese men's volleyball team, died of a ruptured heart hemangioma during training. On December 17, 2011, Collier, who played for the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA, died suddenly on the training floor. On 3 April 2011, Argentine rugby player Diego Celal died suddenly on the way to the hospital after an ambulance after feeling unwell after the day's match, which proved that he had died of a heart attack. American basketball player Wilt Chamberlain and the famous American sprinter "Flower Butterfly" Griffith Joyner all died in their sleep during the heyday of their sports lives, shocking the sports world, and the cause of death is still unknown.
On July 26, 2007, Wang Hongli, a 61-year-old famous football coach and former coach of the Liaoning team, died in Shenyang at the age of 61, and the cause of death was sudden cardiac death. Wang Hongli's death caused a huge shock in the football world. It is understood that Wang Hongli did not have any history of heart disease before his death, and the hospital revealed that Wang Hongli's sudden death was caused by excessive pressure on the heart caused by strenuous exercise.
Sudden death and cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases have become a lingering nightmare for athletes, and many young athletes in the prime of life have died suddenly on the field or in their sleep.
Accidental death of athletes and people who engage in physical activity during or within 24 hours of exercise is called exercise sudden death, according to the World Health Organization's (WHO) international cardiologist.
心源性猝死（Sudden cardiac death,SCD）是运动性猝死的最主要原因，也是其最主要表现形式。
What caused the tragic sudden death of these athletes? Why are seemingly healthy athletes at risk? What sports are susceptible to sudden exercise-induced death? How can it be prevented?
▎ Youth Games 17-year-old swimming champion Qing Wenyi died suddenly.
Why is movement deadly? Up to 80% of athletes who die suddenly have no heart disease symptoms or family history!
For Zhang and other athletes, cardiac arrest (SCA) is the leading cause of death in young athletes.
A study in the United States reported that the incidence of sudden cardiac death (SCD) in athletes was 2.3-4.4 per 100,000 people/year. The risk of sudden death (SCD) in male athletes is 5 times higher than in women, and the reason for the gender disparity in SCD may be related to the lower incidence of cardiovascular abnormalities in women.
According to the survey, the incidence of SCD in black American athletes engaged in competitive sports is 5.6 per 100,000 people per year, which is higher than that of athletes of other races, and may be related to the higher risk of sudden death in black athletes with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) (20% for black athletes and 10% for whites). There are also differences in SCD across different types of sports, with basketball and football athletes having the highest incidence of SCD in the United States and football players at greatest risk in Europe.
There are many causes of cardiac arrest. These include coronary artery disease, heart attack, enlarged heart, valvular heart disease, congenital heart defects, and heart transplant problems. Sometimes, an unexpected blow to the chest can also cause the heart to stop.
Unfortunately, the symptoms of cardiac arrest are similar to those that many athletes experience almost every day: shortness of breath, chest pain, rapid heartbeat.
In a 2015 European study, 171 of the 2,354 athletes who participated in the Summer or Winter Olympics suffered from heart disease of varying severity, or 7.3 percent. Sun Yang once withdrew from the 1500m freestyle final of the World Championships in Kazan due to heart discomfort; The female ranking will Hui Ruoqi's heart was previously diagnosed with ventricular tachycardia.
The main causes of sudden death under the age of 35 are hereditary or congenital heart anomalies. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is the leading cause of sudden cardiac death in young athletes, accounting for more than one-third of the total.
However, in June 2022, the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), published recommendations on how to use genetic testing to prevent sudden cardiac death in athletes and ensure safe exercise. This study shows that up to 80% of athletes who die suddenly have no heart disease symptoms or family history!
An authoritative scientific research institution in the United States has conducted a statistical study on 158 athletes who died suddenly in the United States, and among the 158 athletes, 134 died of cardiovascular disease, and only one of the 134 athletes who died suddenly was diagnosed with heart disease. In other words, until death strikes, athletes generally cannot know that they have a "killer" hidden in them.
A study by the Mayo Clinic called sudden cardiac death due to a blow to the chest a concussion. Cardiac concussion can occur when an athlete's chest is hit by sports equipment or other athletes. This condition does not cause damage to the heart muscle, but it can alter the heart's electrical signaling. Ventricular fibrillation can occur if the chest is impinged at a specific point in the signaling cycle. Cardiac arrest caused by this concussion is more dangerous and more insidious.
How can athletes and ordinary people prevent sudden death?
According to a 2019 survey by the Institute of Sports Science of the General Administration of Sports of China, the sports with the highest proportion of sudden sports death are running, accounting for 33.98%, followed by football and basketball.
Sudden sports death occurs not only in professional athletes, but also in ordinary gym people, such as running in the school playground and sudden death from night running.
With regard to the prevention of sudden death in athletes, studies on early recognition of cardiac arrest are currently beginning in the United States and Europe. The use of automated external defibrillation and cardiopulmonary resuscitation can significantly improve the survival rate of athletes. A recent study of 1,710 U.S. universities equipped with automated external defibrillators found that 23 (64%) of the 36 patients who experienced SCD survived, suggesting that early defibrillation improves outcomes in young athletes with SCD.
Although sudden death from exercise cannot be prevented, there are still some regular things to pay attention to, such as reducing the exercise load, not maintaining or even exceeding the maximum heart rate during exercise, not exercising when you are very tired, and not exercising until you are exhausted.
Heat stroke is often one of the other common dangers associated with marathon running and other sports, and its incidence is much higher than cardiac arrest.
Conduct a strict physical examination before participating in sports training or competitions to identify people at high risk of sudden sports death as early as possible, and reduce the amount of exercise or retirement.
Also, if you have never run a step and are over 40 years old, it is recommended not to run marathons and strenuous exercise. Researchers assessed the incidence and outcomes of cardiac arrest associated with marathon and half marathon running in the United States from January 1, 2000 to May 31, 2010. Results Of the nearly 11 million runners, 59 participants with an average age of 42±13 years experienced cardiac arrest, including 51 men. The incidence rate was 0.54 per 100,000 people. Of the 59 cases of cardiac arrest, 42 (71%) were fatal. The incidence of cardiac arrest during a marathon was significantly higher than that of a half marathon.
Exercise is for health, but not for life.
May everyone be safe and fit.