May 10 – Romania’s interior ministry has suspended the licence of a private ambulance company that transported Dinamo Bucharest and Cameroon midfielder Patrick Ekeng to hospital after he collapsed during a match last Friday and died shortly afterwards.
The ministry said in a statement it found defibrillators with expired batteries in some ambulances belonging to Puls, and medicine used in resuscitation procedures that had expired.
It has also imposed fines totalling 23,800 lei ($6,039.38) following an investigation of equipment and the professional qualifications of staff.
After Ekeng’s death, world soccer players’ union FIFPro raised concerns about the level of first-aid treatment for footballers in Romania, saying “it is clear that some Romanian clubs have a history of skimping on medical facilities”.
Ekeng, 26, collapsed on the pitch seven minutes after going on as a substitute against Viitorul Constanta. He was taken a short distance to the hospital where doctors tried for more than an hour to resuscitate him.
Doctors now say he had an enlarged heart but more tests are needed to determine the cause of death.
Dan Dermengiu, the director of the Mina Minovici Forensic Institute where the autopsy was performed, said many athletes have enlarged hearts and that ”is not conclusive in the case of his death.”
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