Fan Dies At MLB Game After Suffering Heart Attack


A fan died at a MLB game in Toronto after suffering a heart attack during the seventh inning.

The game at the Rogers Centre between the Chicago White Sox and Toronto Blue Jays was halted for five minutes after the man collapsed, the Yahoo! Sports blog Big League Stew reported. The man was sitting on the third base line of the game, and Chicago third baseman Kevin Youkilis noticed the man receiving CPR shortly after his collapse.

Youkilis said he was shook up over the incident and that, when a fan dies at a MLB game, it injects some reality into the contest.

“I saw some medics jump out around the dugout and run over,” Youkilis said to reporters following the game. “Then I saw a doctor or whoever was going, just pushing on the chest over and over and over. I thought maybe they were reviving him and then they next thing you know, they kept going and going. I was like ‘God, man. We’ve got to stop this (game),’ and luckily we did.”

White Sox pitcher Jesse Crain, who was on the mound at the time, told the Associated Press that he was also shocked to see a fan die at a MLB game.

“I said a little prayer for him after everything started going again,” Crain said. “You don’t ever want to see that.”

Players from both teams stood quietly on the field and the top of the dugouts while paramedics worked on the man, whose age and name had not yet been released. He was removed from the game on a stretcher and later died at a Toronto hospital, CityNews Toronto reported.

The game was resumed after the man was taken off the field and placed into a waiting ambulance, with paramedics working on him the entire time. The Associated Press noted that this was not the first time a fan needed CPR at a Blue Jays game, with another incident taking place June 29.

Though it’s not common that a fan dies at a MLB game, this is now the second high-profile incident in the past two years. Last year a fan died after falling over a railing when he leaned too far to catch a ball tossed by Texas Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton.

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