Former Italy Under-21 midfielder Piermario Morosini died Saturday after suffering cardiac arrest and collapsing on the pitch during his team Livorno's Serie B match at Pescara, Italy. He was 25.
Edoardo De Blasio, a cardiologist at Pescara's Santo Spirito hospital, confirmed Morosini's death, saying "unfortunately he was already dead when he arrived at hospital. He didn't regain consciousness."
Morosini, who was on loan from Serie A side Udinese, fell to the ground in the 31st minute of the match and tried unsuccessfully to get up several times before receiving urgent medical attention on the pitch. A defibrillator was used on the player, who also had his heart massaged, before an ambulance arrived on the pitch to take him to hospital where doctors tried to revive him for around an hour and a half.
The autopsy is expected be held Monday. All Italian matches during the weekend were immediately called off after the death was announced.
An inquiry into Morosini's death will be opened and will focus particularly on the car belonging to traffic police which blocked the ambulance's way into the stadium, creating a delay. A window had to be broken so the car could be moved, while players and officials were frantically gesturing for the ambulance to get there as quickly as possible.
The match was abandoned with Livorno leading 2-0, and several players left the field in tears.
Morosini was orphaned in his teens. His mother died when he was 15 and was followed by his father two years later. His brother died shortly afterward too, leaving the young Morosini with just an older sister.
"They are things which mark you and change your life," Morosini said in 2005 after the death of his parents. "But at the same time they instill in your body so much anger and help you to always give everything to realize what was also my parents' dream."
Morosini came through the youth system at Atalanta before moving on to Udinese.
"He was golden, always trying to help his family," Atalanta youth team director Mino Favini said. "He was a fantastic lad who always rushed to help everyone. He lived for his family, yet he was such an unlucky man."
It was the latest high-profile case of a football player collapsing from heart failure on the pitch, coming less than a month after Bolton midfielder Fabrice Muamba suffered cardiac arrest during a game in England. Muamba survived, but remains in intensive care.
SOURCE: LA Times