African footballer dies of cardiac arrest in Bangalore

BANGALORE: An African student from Ivory Coast, who collapsed playing football for his college team on Wednesday, died of cardiac arrest, the police said here on Thursday quoting the autopsy report.

“Attebi Djwrey Abale Albert Aguste, 26, faced a sudden death. He suffered a massive cardiac arrest just before half-time while playing for the Reddy Jana Sangha First Grade collage in the south zonal inter-college football match underway at the Central College grounds,” deputy commissioner of police B Shivkumar said.

Aguste was a student of the final year of Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA) at the private college in Koramangala suburb and resided at Viveknagar with his two younger brothers.

According to the preliminary post-mortem report prepared by the state-run Victoria Hospital, Aguste collapsed on the soccer field under stressed conditions and died on the way to the nearby Martha Hospital.

“A large quantity of blood will be pumped to the arteries and veins of the heart while playing. In such a stressed condition the heart may not be capable of holding the blood rush leading to cardiac arrest,” Kumar said, quoting from the autopsy report submitted by Victoria Hopsital surgeon S Venkataraghavan.

College principal Krishnaiah said the police were yet to hand over Aguste's body to his brothers, who also study in the city but in other colleges.

“The police said the body will be handed over after getting results of tests conducted on other organs. They want to ascertain whether the death was precipitated by the effect of drugs, if any,” Krishnaiah pointed out.

“We will complete the formalities by late Thursday and issue a no-objection certificate to enable the family fly the body to Abidjan in Ivory Coast of West Africa. A representative of the Ivory Coast embassy has come from New Delhi to assist the brothers in getting the clearance,” Shivkumar said.

The police have registered an unnatural death under section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).

Aguste is the second soccer player to have died in Bangalore on the field.

Brazilian striker Cristiano Junior of Dempo Sports Club (Goa) collapsed in January 2004 after colliding with Mohan Bagan goalkeeper Subrata Pal in the Federation Cup final and died even before he was rushed to an orthopaedic hospital. Minutes before the tragic end, Junior even scored his team's second - and winning - goal to help his team win the trophy.

“The sudden death of athletes on ground can be due to any one of the causes, including heart problem, being unaware of the symptom, rupture of aneurysm in brain, congenital heart or use of banned drugs,” orthopaedics hospital chief Thomas Chandy pointed out.