Bronny James, the 18-year-old son of NBA star LeBron James, suffered a cardiac arrest Monday during basketball practice.
The incoming USC freshman is now out of intensive care and in stable condition, but doctors haven’t yet determined what caused the incident.
What they do know is he did not have a heart attack. That’s because, despite what many people think, cardiac arrest and heart attack are not the same thing.
Cardiac arrest
According to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cardiac arrest occurs when the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops beating and blood stops flowing. This is caused by an electrical malfunction.
When the heart stop beating — no longer pumping blood — the rest of the body is deprived of oxygen, which can lead to a loss of consciousness.
When James lost consciousness Monday, he “received initial treatment from team medical staff before he was loaded in an ambulance and taken to Cedar-Sinai Medical Center at ‘Code 3, lights and sirens,’” Sports Illustrated reported.
More than 356,000 people experience an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest each year in the United States, the CDC reports. Without immediate care, 60-80% of them die before making it to the hospital.
Heart attacks
A heart attack, on the other hand, is when a part of the heart muscle itself doesn’t get enough blood. It is a circulatory problem, not an electrical one.
Much more common than cardiac arrest, someone in the U.S. has a heart attack every 40 seconds — that’s about 805,000 people per year.
A heart attack is usually “a slow onset of symptoms persisting from hours to days: chest pain, light-headedness and shortness of breath are all warning signs,” the Daily Mail reported. “This can lead to cardiac arrest, but not always.”
Cardiac arrest not uncommon among younger athletes
Although cardiac arrest is rare in someone Bronny James’ age, it’s more common among athletes, Dr. Jonathan Drezner, who specializes in sports cardiology at the University of Washington Medical Center, told CNN.
“Bronny represents the single highest athlete risk group” for sudden cardiac arrest, Drezner said.
Young, Black male, NCAA athletes who play Division I basketball have a 1 in 2,000 chance of experiencing cardiac arrest each year, according to Drezner’s research. If the player is white, the chance is 1 in 5,000, according to his research.
Doctors will likely perform a comprehensive evaluation to determine what caused James’ cardiac arrest, Drezner told the news organization. Those results will determine the teen’s treatment.
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