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Football stadium deaths – are defibrillators needed at all stadiums?
Over a quarter of the most prestigious football clubs in Europe do not have automatic defibrillators. An alarming thought when one considers that every year tens of millions of spectators attend these stadiums.
During the 2005-2006 season, Professor Mats Borjesson and his team at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden assessed the quality of the medical facilities available at 187 leading sports venues in Europe. Although no deaths were recorded among players during this period, there were 77 deaths due to myocardial infarction (heart attack) among spectators. This equates to 1 death per 589,000 people.
Professor Borjesson is therefore asking that major investment be provided to install automatic defibrillators at every stadium. He is also asking for the standardisation of emergency medical procedures. “At present there are very few recommendations on procedures in the event of medical emergencies in stadiums. It is therefore more a problem of lack of information than a financial one”, he points out.
So should France feel concerned about this? Apparently not, according to the French National Football League which in fact states that “100% of League 1 and League 2 stadiums are equipped with defibrillators”. Fine … but have arrangements also been made for them to be used by trained staff?
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