The boy's heart stopped after a blow from a sliotar.
A mother who was watching her son play hurling has helped to save his life, after an in-game incident caused him to suffer cardiac arrest.
The woman, who is a nurse, ran onto the pitch and started performing CPR after a sliotar blow to the chest resulted in her 13-year-old son's heart stopping beating.
According to a Case Report in the Irish Medical Journal the boy’s heart stopped beating for less than four minutes and along with the CPR, a defibrillator was applied and one shock delivered achieved return of spontaneous circulation.
This allowed a “prompt resuscitation and automated external defibrillation (AED) enabled a full recovery”.
Medics at Galway University Hospital and Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin state that the incident is the first reported case of Commotio Cordis (CC) caused by a sliotar.
Commotio Cordis is an often lethal disruption of heart rhythm that occurs as a result of a blow to the area directly over the heart at a critical time during the cycle of a heartbeat causing cardiac arrest.
They state: “Considering that most CC cases occur in adolescents and have a high mortality rate, timely management of cardiac arrest is key.”
In the incident, an ambulance arrived on site and the boy had a normal examination and electrocardiogram (ECG) for his heart on admission to hospital.
