Soccer Star to Receive Life-Saving Device

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK — After collapsing from cardiac arrest and being resuscitated during his country's opening European Championship game, Danish soccer player Christian Eriksen is to be fitted with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator,[i] or ICD, according to CNN.

An ICD is a device fitted inside people's chests that can treat dangerously abnormal heart rhythms, known as arrhythmia[j], according to the British Heart Foundation.

The heart has its own electrical system that regulates its beats. With every heartbeat, an electrical signal travels through your heart, causing it to contract and pump blood.

If these electrical signals begin to be transmitted in an uncontrolled manner, the lower heart chambers, or ventricles, begin to twitch uselessly, rather than filling with blood, according to the Mayo Clinic.

The result can be a cardiac arrest, where the heart doesn't pump blood to the rest of the body, causing brain damage or death.

When an ICD is inserted, it monitors the heart's rhythm through the electrodes. If it detects any irregularity, it can send low or high-voltage electrical pulses, at different rates, through to the heart to correct it.