LeBron James Jr., son of NBA star LeBron James, suffered a heart attack while practicing at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles on Monday and was taken to the hospital for treatment in the intensive care unit, Reuters reported. Spokesperson for LeBron James and his wife Savannah. Little James, known as Bronny, is currently in stable condition and no longer in intensive care, the statement said.
“LeBron and Savannah would like to publicly express their deepest gratitude and appreciation to the USC medical and athletics staff for their incredible efforts and dedication to the safety of our players.”
Fire Department responded to a call for medical assistance at 9:26 a.m. Tuesday in the 3400 block of Figueroa Street in Los Angeles, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman said. The department will not disclose who needs medical assistance, citing federal policy.
Bronny James, 18, will be a freshman at USC this fall. He is the eldest of Lakers star LeBron James’ three children. Bronny James is a four-star recruit who chose USC over Oregon and Ohio State.
The USC men’s basketball program was scheduled to embark on a 10-day exhibition trip to Greece and Croatia starting Aug. 5, according to a statement released in May. It was unclear whether the team would still make the trip or whether James would leave.
Cardiac arrest, which occurs when the heart stops, is different from a heart attack, which occurs when blood flow is blocked in the arteries that supply blood to the heart. More than 300,000 people experience a heart attack outside the hospital each year.
Among cardiac arrest patients, the survival rate of those who received CPR by those nearby is only 11.2%. The survival rate for those who receive immediate defibrillation increases to 41%. It is not known what treatment James received.
If a cardiac arrest patient lasts 4 to 6 minutes without CPR and brain death occurs 10 minutes later, brain damage is likely to occur. Only 8% of cardiac arrest survivors have a good neurological outcome. Most have “some degree of brain damage”, Monica Sales, An American Heart Association spokesperson said in an interview in January:
USC has experience handling cardiac emergencies. While working out at Galen Center last summer, freshman Vincent Iwuchukwu suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized. Iwuchukwu returned to play in 14 games for the Trojans last season.
Florida’s rising star Keyontae Johnson suffered a heart attack during a game in 2020. He eventually recovered and resumed his career at Kansas State, starring on a team that reached the quarterfinals in the NCAA Tournament last season. Johnson was selected by Oklahoma City in the second round of the NBA draft last June.
Few cardiac events occurred more publicly than Damar Hamlin’s collapse from a heart attack during a nationally televised football game last season. Hamlin, who is currently attempting to resume his career with the Buffalo Bills, posted the following: Message of support for James on Twitter: “Prayers to Bronny and the James family as well. I am here for you just as you have helped me every step of the way.”
Montrice Wright, the mother of Trojans freshman Kijani Wright, said she hasn’t spoken to her son since James went down, but said he and other members of the team are dealing with the aftermath of the second incident. He said he hoped it would be there. This incident occurred in just over a year.
“When you see something like that, it doesn’t make you worry,” she said. “These kids have been through so much. “I’m not getting enough rest and it’s too hot.”
Researchers at the University of Washington conducted a thorough analysis of cardiac deaths in NCAA sports. Black male college basketball players have a higher risk of sudden cardiac death than other groups of players, said lead author Dr. Kimberly Harmon, of the Washington Center for Sports Cardiology.
The annual risk of sudden cardiac death for Black Division I basketball players is 1 in 5,000. For white athletes, it’s 1 in 16,000. Dr. Harmon said he and his colleagues found no explanation for the discrepancy.
“We see that over and over again with high school athletes as well as NCAA athletes,” she said.
James isn’t the only son of an NBA star to have suffered heart problems. Sharif O’Neal, one of Shaquille O’Neal’s sons and a friend of James, underwent open-heart surgery in 2018 when he was 18 after being diagnosed with a congenital heart defect that affects his coronary arteries.
Since then, O’Neal has documented his recovery on social media as he works to return to basketball. According to the American Heart Association, O’Neill had to learn to walk again and he underwent months of rehabilitation.
“In 20 years, I want to be known as the kid who fought back against something that changed his life and achieved his dreams,” O’Neill said in an interview on the “Now For Late” podcast this week.
“Honestly, I thought I would never play basketball again,” O’Neill said.
On the USC campus, where football reigns supreme, basketball is often an afterthought. But that was expected to change this season, in part because of the presence of young James, who has 7.5 million Instagram followers and will play home games within walking distance of the stadium where his father plays for the Lakers.
The crowd was expected to follow James, as he had done since the summer before he entered high school, fans who had been watching him play against others in his age group from the gymnasium gates of a top high school recruiting showcase.
As he grew and his game developed, James came to be viewed by college coaches as a complementary player with a high basketball IQ. He was a guard viewed as a contributor rather than a star on a team with Final Four ambitions.
But his hiring was largely driven by a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” approach. And he ended up visiting basketball powerhouses like Duke and Kentucky, if not all of them. Instead, he toured schools where he could more easily play. Oregon’s benefactor is Phil Knight, founder of Nike, a shoe company with strong ties to the elder James. LeBron said that if he had had to go to college before he went to Ohio State University in the NBA, he would have attended. And USC, a school close to his home.
The Trojans also include Washington state native DJ Rodman, whose basketball player father Dennis was a pop culture sensation in the 1990s. But this is more than a team of descendants of basketball stars.
USC should look pretty good after adding point guard Isaiah Collier from Marietta, Ga., one of the best freshmen in the country. He will team with Boogie Ellis, the Pac-12’s second-leading returning scorer. center Joshua Morgan, who led the conference in blocks last season; And then there’s forward Kobe Johnson, the conference’s leading returner in steals.
Iuchukwu, a 7-foot-1-inch center, is also considered an NBA prospect.
After this season, Bronny James will be eligible for the NBA Draft. LeBron James has often said he would like to play on an NBA team with his son, and he has even hinted that he would like to play with his younger son, Bryce, 16, who attends Campbell Hall School in Los Angeles. LeBron James and Savannah James’ daughter Zuri is 8 years old.
LeBron James (38) led the Lakers to the Western Conference finals, 20th in the NBA, last season. Last February, he became the NBA’s all-time scoring leader, surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who held the title for nearly 39 years. .
Livia Albek-Lipka, Adam Zagoria and Jesus Jimenez contributed to the report.
