Sports Editorials
Fabrice Muamba shows true miracle of sports
Sports often offer an opportunity for feats thought to be unthinkable to take place.
It's why people watch them. Most times, it's an unbelievable play or the underdog coming out victorious that grabs our attention.
For many Americans, this idea leads them to think of the 1980 U.S. men's hockey team that brought down the seemingly invincible Soviet Union squad on its way to the gold medal — known to many as "the miracle on ice."
I'll fully support the United States in any athletic competition, but after the events that took place in an English soccer stadium a few weeks ago, it seems almost laughable to consider a simple victory in a game to be a miracle.
Just three weeks after collapsing on the field, Bolton midfielder Fabrice Muamba is now looking forward to possibly resuming his soccer career, according to several reports from England.
Muamba, who just turned 24, suffered a cardiac arrest during the first half of Bolton's March 17 game against Tottenham. The 6-foot-2 midfielder laid on ground for several minutes while the medical personnel attended to him. Muamba was carried to an ambulance, which rushed him to a local hospital.
For those in attendance and many more watching on television, the chances of Muamba surviving appeared dim as the midfielder's heart actually stopped beating — making him clinically dead for 78 minutes.
But something much more miraculous than a hockey win took place. The work of the medical men and women inside the stadium, inside the ambulance and at the hospital resulted in Muamba receiving a second chance.
Within two weeks, a photograph posted on Twitter showed Muamba smiling in his hospital bed. Now, the idea of Muamba returning to the field — something barely thinkable on March 17 — appears possible.
So sports can continue to provide a chance to see the impossible, but those who followed the Muamba story know that his recovery tops any athletic feat ever accomplished on the field. And if the man who was carried off the playing surface without a heart beat can make his return by running onto the field, that act alone can be considered a miracle.