 Atlanta Hawks center Jason Collier was already dead when the ambulance pulled into the emergency area at Northside Hospital Forsyth early Saturday; a 28-year-old victim of a mysterious heart attack that struck in the middle of the night.
Forsyth County Coroner Lauren McDonald, who was at the hospital when the ambulance arrived, said Collier's wife, Katie, told him he woke up with chest pains and shortness of breath around 3:30 a.m.
"He woke up, told her he was having difficulty breathing," McDonald said. "She asked him if he wanted her to call 911, and he said 'yes.' Katie started CPR until the EMS got there. They tried for 20 minutes to get a rhythm, but couldn't."
No one knows yet why a man in his prime — a 7-foot-tall professional athlete with no known history of heart disease — would suffer a cardiac arrest. The body was transferred to the state Medical Examiner's Office in Decatur, where an autopsy was performed late Saturday. Results might not be known for several days.
Emory University cardiologist and professor, Dr. Steven Manoukian, said most likely the young man had a blockage in an artery; very rare in people Collier's age or athletic condition.
It's also possible Collier had an irregular heartbeat or cardiomyopathy, either an abnormal weakness or thickening of the heart muscle, or a blood clot in his lungs. Some very large men have a condition called Marfan syndrome, a change in the way proteins make up the walls of arteries, which can lead to too much stretching and sometimes, rupture.
Dr. Winston Gandy of St. Joseph's Hospital in Atlanta, a board member of the American Heart Association, said when most people complain of chest pain or shortness of breath, "the most common thing we think of is coronary artery disease. In a young athletic person, one thinks of an aeortic aneuysm, an enlarged aorta. That can result in a tear known as aerotic dissection. Such tears can . . . cause sudden death that way."
The possibility — that he suffered a rupture of the aorta — often is associated with trauma, Gandy said.
If that didn't happen, then maybe he suffered "an electrical short circuit of the heart, or ventricular fibrillation," Gandy said. "That can be a result of an abnormal thickening of the heart muscle called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy."
One other possibility — blood can peel away the inner lining of an artery, and obstruct flow to the rest of the body, he said.
Sudden cardiac death kills more than 300,000 Americans every year, and many have no symptoms or risks.
 Indeed, many people don't know they have heart problems until they suffer an attack, caused by blockage of arteries or sudden cardiac arrest, Manoukian said. People who suffer sudden cardiac arrests often die within nine minutes unless an electrical jolt is administered.
Despite efforts, EMTs could not establish a heart rhythm while trying to revive him, McDonald said. "The assumption would be he was dead at the house," he said.
George Ivey, a Northside Hospital Forsyth spokesman, said Collier was dead on arrival at the emergency room.
"It was beyond any cardiologist assistance," he said.
McDonald said it is likely a news conference will be held sometime Sunday if the autopsy reveals an obvious cause of death. He also said the funeral home he operates with his father, Bubba McDonald, will handle burial arrangements. | |
