The Catalan footballer who survived five cardiac arrests: “I have been born again”

“I’ll do what they let me, I won’t complain“. Surely Ferran Duran will have to put football aside – a good season at least – but this will be the least of his ills after being born again. The 27-year-old player from the modest Maià, from Cuarta Catalana, suffered up to five stoppages Cardiac events last Tuesday, October 12, while he was playing a match against Bescanó B. From that day, he remembers absolutely nothing. “He didn’t know what he was doing in the hospital. I woke up full of pipes and cables everywhere without having a clue of anything“He explains. After spending 10 days admitted to the Josep Trueta hospital in Girona, where they operated on him to implement an internal automatic defibrillator on his heart, he just began to digest” the scare that people took away. ” , freak. I am not yet aware of the value of staying here, “he adds. The second part of the Maià-Bescanó B of Cuarta Catalana (group 27) had just started when the president of the local entity, Blai Moliner, who had to be absent from the rest, he found himself suddenly with Adrià Serra, member of the board of directors and player of the club, hastily picking up the automatic external defibrillator (AED) from the old people’s home located about 300 meters from the Municipal field. “Ferran has collapsed and needs the defibrillator urgently,” Serra alerted him, who is studying the CAFE degree at EUSES and thought of going to look for him. With no time to lose, they loaded him into the car and shot out to the football field, where a nurse and a teacher, Imma Malagelada, who were watching the game, helped the player with the help of the device, everything happened very quickly and all the time. The world was key with his reaction, although, as Duran comments, “you have to know how to do it, especially if it is someone close to you because it is normal for you to stay blocked.” Even more so in a club as familiar as Maià. Coach, David Abuli, he is his uncle and he was the one who opened his mouth, despite the bites, to stick his tongue out and prevent him from choking by swallowing it. The Bescanó B technician also collaborated. “They tell me that I fell, got up and immediately collapsed again. I do not remember it, nor what I did that morning. I have a void in my memory. The day before perhaps I was more tired of the usual, but I did not consider it anything like giving it importance, “he says. Slumped on the pitch, Duran suffered three cardiac arrests. The nurse and Malagelada did the maneuvers with the AED to revive him and 14 minutes later, which “became very long”, the helicopter arrived that took him to the Girona hospital and then two ambulances. When he received medical services, he suffered two more cardiac arrests.Having AED, of vital importance

From a logistical point of view, Maià de Montcal should not have any AED because it has just over 400 inhabitants and, incomprehensibly, it is not considered a priority need by the Department of Health. If there is one in the old people’s home, it is thanks to the program “Girona, cardioprotected territory” started a decade ago by the Chief of Cardiology of Trueta, Ramon Brugada. “They said he didn’t play and, look, thank God he saved my life,” says Duran with a broken voice. Just because he can continue to tell his story, with a “super fast recovery”, they have already deserved It is worth all the costs of having an AED in the municipality. In Maià they have taken another step and the club has asked the Catalan Federation for one from the campaign “We are all a heartbeat” to cardioprotect football and futsal. You never know when there may be a scare like the one they had. Medical check-ups are “unpredictable.” “I have spent 10 days doing tests and they found the problem in the last resonance with contrast. If it happens to First-class players, it can happen everywhere …”, says Duran. “Until you meet, you don’t realize it. On TV it looks far away. But behind the costs of having an AED, there are lives. I don’t know if there will be more or not. I only hope that from my case, they will put in all the fields, no matter how small the town is. You never know when it can happen, where or to whom. What is clear is that a life in Maià is worth the same as one in Girona or anywhere else “, he concludes.