Cardiac Arrest Isn’t Increasing Among Athletes Despite Incidents Like Bronny Jam
When 18-year-old LeBron “Bronny" James, Jr. suffered cardiac arrest on Monday during a basketball workout at the University of Southern California, whose basketball team he committed to in May, he joined a lengthening list of prominent athletes who have done so in recent years. Then-University of Florida basketball player Keyontae Johnson collapsed during a game in 2020, and James’s current USC teammate, Vince Iwuchukwu, did the same during an informal team practice last summer.
Most jarringly, given the context of a nationally televised Monday Night Football broadcast, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin was rushed from the field early in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals in January. Despite the clustering of headline-grabbing cases, experts say there has been no statistically significant rise in cardiac events of young athletes. What has changed is the high profile of the athletes involved—and the preparedness to respond to those emergencies.
“Among the collegiate ranks, this is a rare event; it’s around one in 50,000 for all NCAA athletes," said Dr. Meagan Wasfy, a sports cardiologist at Mass General Brigham. “And no contemporary data suggests that that rate has risen over time." After recent emergencies—most notably in the cases of Hamlin and James, the son of NBA superstar LeBron James—vaccine skeptics have flooded social media with assertions that the Covid-19 vaccine made athletes susceptible to cardiac arrest.
Dr. Michael Ackerman, a genetic cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. said that no such connection has been demonstrated.
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