Scary Hockey Moment

Watching the Preds/Red Wings game tonight...I'm sure many or most of you have heard this by now, but there was one of the scariest moments I've ever seen in a live sporting event.

About 7 minutes left in the first period, the benches started going crazy, waving their arms and screaming. The play was called dead and players (and coaches and trainers) rushed over to the Detroit bench.

Jiri Fischer, a 25-year old defensemen for the Wings, had a seizure and collapsed on the floor next to the Detroit bench. But we didn't know that for several minutes. There was no camera angle that could show us who was even lying behind the bench...or what was even going on. Details were slow to emerge. Even the camera angle we had was obscured by all the concerned players gathered around the bench. For a while, all we knew was that someone had collapsed.

Fans near the Detroit bench were weeping.

Eventually the players moved around a bit and for a few seconds we had a clearer view of the bench...and a man clearly performing CPR on the downed man. At this point we still didn't know who was hurt or how. But for several minutes (5 or 10...at least enough for a commercial break) they were doing CPR on him. At least three different people took turns performing CPR.

I can't tell you how eerie it is to watch a man performing CPR on an unseen, unknown victim, while 20,000 fans stared on in horror.

I said to my game-watching friend, "They don't do CPR when you're fine and breathing. They do it when you're basically dead...when your heart stops working."

They used the defibrillator and eventually--thankfully--they got the poor guy's heart started again.

Currently he's at the local hospital, in stable condition, breathing on his own and speaking. Apparently Fischer had a physical a while back where a slight abnormality was discovered in his heart. The test itself was "abnormal" so they did some more tests and he seemed to be fine. The problem with his heart was not considered to be career or life threatening, and there is no indication at this point if it played any part in tonight's collapse.

But at least he's okay. Thank God.

The game was called. There hasn't been any date set at this point as far as rescheduling the game. But I'm sure it was the right decision to call the game. Neither team's players could have had their minds in the game after all that.

Just a surreal, strange, scary experience to watch it all unfold. Thoughts and prayers to the Fischer family for a speedy recovery.