Kansas City Chiefs’ star kicker Harrison Butker has been hailed a hero for his quick actions during a team meeting this week, where he helped teammate BJ Thompson get immediate medical attention after Thompson suffered a cardiac arrest.
Butker, realizing something was terribly wrong, was the first to dash towards the Chiefs‘ athletic trainers to alert them and other medical staff, according to Rick Burkholder, the team’s vice president of sports performance and medicine.
During a special teams meeting, Thompson experienced a seizure followed by a cardiac arrest and was swiftly transported to a nearby hospital. He is currently in a “stable” condition at the hospital.
Burkholder detailed the incident, saying, “When he had the seizure, Butker immediately ran towards the training room and grabbed additional assistance from team staff. As a team, we tried to stabilize BJ and put him on the floor while he was still seizing. Then he went into cardiac arrest. Our team of that group of people provided CPR for him, he had one AD shock and came back so he was only in cardiac arrest for less than a minute – minute and a half.”
This act of heroism comes amidst controversy surrounding Butker, who recently made headlines for a speech at Benedictine College that was criticized for promoting outdated views on women’s roles. Despite the disagreement from many teammates, including a public rebuttal from Travis Kelce, the team has stood by their star kicker, Butker. This comes after a petition demanding his release was signed by over 229,000 people.
Butker, who has been with the team for seven years and played a crucial role in their three Super Bowl victories, will continue as their starting kicker while under contract. Thompson, a fifth-round pick from Stephen F. Austin, was part of last season’s Super Bowl-winning team. Although he didn’t play in the game, he had a rotational role with the Chiefs throughout his rookie season.
The incident was reportedly traumatic for everyone involved, leading to the cancellation of the rest of the day’s OTA’s. The team resumed activities the following day, Friday.
Burkholder informed reporters that Thompson was put on a ventilator on Thursday night. Interestingly, the team had practiced their emergency action plan just three days earlier on Monday, a requirement for all NFL organisations to do multiple times per year.
Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo opened up about the incident, stating: “Let me say this before I say anything, I’m thinking about BJ right now. It was scary. I think the guys were a little bit scared, I know I was. But a lot of praying and Rick Burkholder and his staff did a terrific job. But everybody you know, to a man to a person to a woman, because we have some female trainers, they were terrific, they did a great job. So we’ll keep our fingers crossed. I’ll let Andy handle the rest of that.”
