Top Irish heart surgeon 'dies suddenly' on cycling trip
One of Ireland’s leading cardiothoracic surgeons last weekend died suddenly while on a bicycling trip in France, reports the Belfast Telegraph.
Dr. Simon MacGowan was a top heart surgeon at Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, a fellow of the European Board of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons and a member of the American College of Surgeons.
An avid club cyclist, Dr. MacGowan was on a six-day cycling trip in France last weekend when he suddenly died in his sleep. No cause of death has been announced.
MacGowan’s death came just days after Irish triathlete and cyclist Sarah Fagan also died suddenly after suffering a cardiac arrest during a triathlon. She was 48.
The incident came just days before tennis star Yibing Wu suddenly collapsed at a tournament in Washington, DC, the athlete’s second sudden medical emergency last month. Wu’s collapse came days apart from Denver Broncos wide receiver KJ Hamler being diagnosed with pericarditis — inflammation of the heart’s lining tissue — after feeling chest pains during a workout.
There have been 1,885 cardiac arrests among athletes around the world since the introduction of the COVID-19 injections, 70% of whom have died.
Previous data show that sudden cardiac death (SCD) among athletes under 35, described as a “well-known occurrence,” was much lower. According to a study by the International Olympic Committee, over a period of 38 years (1966–2004), 1,101 athletes under 35 suffered SCD, an average of 29 per year. Incidents were most prevalent in soccer and basketball.
But according to a May analysis of news reports from January 2021 through April 2023, 1,310 out of 1,884 athletes who suffered cardiac arrests died, an average of 561 athletes annually. Over half of these appear to have occurred among football players. These include 38-year-old former NFL star Uche Nwaneri, who called for the unvaccinated to be imprisoned.
Other recent reports have shown a disturbing increase in cardiac events among athletes. A 2021 analysis from Israeli publication Real-Time News reported a 5-fold increase in sudden cardiac and unexplained deaths among FIFA players that year alone.
