As is my practice at tournaments, I do the u littles solo all weekend. It was a scorcher on Saturday with mandatory water breaks and just unbearable humidity. My last match of the day was a 4:15pm and was the second match of the day for the u-9's. One team started the match with no subs. By half time they were down to 5 players in a 7v7 match and then were trying to go to 4 when I declared the match over. One of the boys needed emergency medical assistance and an ambulance was called. At the same time, on a different field a u-10 girl suffered commotio cordis, which I faintly knew about from a relative having suffered it while playing baseball as a 12 year old. It is, as some of you may know, a blow to the heart at a precise moment which causes cardiac arrest. Again, emergency services were needed and fortunately the youth player survived after being taken to a major childrens hospital close by. The survival rate after such an injury is not very good so this is good news. I had never heard of it happening on a soccer field before. I'm sure it has, just not something I ever thought could happen.
You guys remember the thread we had about AED's? An AED is the perfect tool to save the life of a player stricken by this. It's remarkable that u10 soccer would generate impacts that could lead to this but I guess it's the timing, not the severity of the blow, that's critical.
As someone who once suffered from wolff parkinson white syndrome, which is one of those things that causes those near instant deaths you hear about with athletes I can't emphasize enough how important having an AED at every athletic facility is. We had an alumni player die on the field with his brother watching when he came back to practice with them for a bit. Every school now has one.
We had a referee die on the field. He was overweight but not big belly fat. Fortunately for him, two of the moms present were nurses. They did CPR until the EMT's arrived and he survived, but the docs said that when he hit the ground he was legally dead. No respiration, no heartbeat. Would have helped if there had been an AED there.