Footballer Lars Nabbe (23) from Sambeek thought he would be playing football again three weeks ago. The former youth player of VVV-Venlo had finally been given the green light to play recreational sports after years of heart problems. But during the first competition match of the season with fifth division Sambeek, September 21, things went completely wrong. Lars suffered a cardiac arrest on the field. Now, three weeks later in the hospital, he looks back on what happened.
“I felt dizzy for a few seconds and then it went black,” says Lars. “From that moment on I don’t know anything anymore.” He fell down during the match against Lottum/GFC’33. Among others, an opposing player started CPR and saved his life. The trauma helicopter was called, but Lars was eventually taken by ambulance to the Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen.
There he was in a coma for 40 hours. “It was a very exciting time for those around me. Nobody knew how I would get out,” he says. He woke up Tuesday morning. “I was still a bit confused from the sleeping medication. My mother stood next to my bed and said something like: ‘You gave us quite a scare’.” Lars quickly realized what had happened, although he did not know which hospital he had been admitted to. “I didn’t know whether I was in Boxmeer or Nijmegen. I was told that later.” Miraculously, he survived virtually nothing from his cardiac arrest. “I came out really well.”
“Still, it went wrong.”
When Lars signed his first professional contract with VVV at the age of twenty, the medical examination revealed heart problems. A leaking heart valve and heart disease prevented his heart rate from exceeding 150. He was not allowed to play sports again for at least three years. After treatments and checks, he received good news last December to participate in recreational sports. After a year and a half as a coach at Sambeek, he put on his football boots again. “Yet it went wrong. It came completely out of the blue, there was no reason whatsoever.”
What exactly caused the cardiac arrest is still unclear. Lars: “They can’t explain it.” It has now been established that his heart valve has started to leak more seriously and will require surgery. Lars will also receive an ICD: a small box that monitors his heart rhythm and intervenes if necessary.
“The ICD gives me confidence in my body again.”
The operation on his heart valve is scheduled for a week and a half. This is followed by a recovery period of six to eight weeks, plus another six weeks for recovery from the ICD placement. “The ICD gives me confidence in my body again. If everything goes well, I could be close to the old Lars again in six months. That is the goal.” He is confident. “I’m still young, I’m going into the operation fairly fit and I still have a certain perseverance from top sport. Sport has always been a big part of my life. Maybe it will be a little less intensive.”
Although he hasn’t left the hospital for three weeks, Lars is not bored. He gets a lot of visitors, including from his football team. “The first time you notice that everyone is impressed by how well things are going now. They have seen me on the field and then they see me here. That is a huge contrast.” He also works on his laptop on school assignments from his studies (Finance & Control at the HAN in Nijmegen) and at his father’s company. “I have my laptop here and my teachers give me space.”
He has also received many messages of support. “It is special what it brings out in everyone,” he says. “I receive a lot of messages, flowers, balloons, fruit packages, apps and cards. Sometimes also from people I have never spoken to. It is nice that many people sympathize.” He is the youngest in the cardiology department. “I’m lowering the average age considerably,” he laughs.
