Christian Eriksen is at home and “doing well” after collapsing on the pitch during Denmark’s Euro 2020 match against Finland. British cardiologists have praised the life-saving device – a portable defibrillator – that restarted his heart. For a moment, the nation held its breath. For a moment, it was not about football. It was about life and death. And it was about the kind of kit that should be as common as a fire extinguisher in every workplace, every school, every community centre.
The device in question is an automated external defibrillator, or AED. It delivers an electric shock to restore a normal heart rhythm during sudden cardiac arrest. According to the British Heart Foundation, survival rates can double or triple if a defibrillator is used within minutes. Eriksen’s collapse was a brutal reminder of how fragile life is, even for a fit 29-year-old athlete. But it also showed what happens when the right equipment is in the right hands: the medical team on the pitch reacted within seconds, using the defibrillator to bring him back.
This is not just a sports story. It is a story about the difference between life and death in the real economy. In the North, in the Midlands, in the towns and cities where I grew up, public defibrillators are still too rare. The charity defib campaigners have been fighting for years to get them into community centres, leisure centres, and workplaces. Yet too often they are locked away in offices that are closed at weekends, or too expensive for a small business to buy. The cost of a defibrillator can be £1,000 to £2,000. Too many employers and local authorities decide it is not a priority.
After Eriksen’s collapse, the British Cardiovascular Society issued a statement praising the “life-saving emergency care” and calling for greater access to AEDs across the country. They are right. But access is not just about having a box on the wall. It is about training, maintenance, and knowing where the nearest one is. It is about making sure that when a cardiac arrest happens – at a Sunday league match, a community centre bingo night, or a high street supermarket – someone can grab the yellow box and use it.
This is where the state comes in. The government has promised to improve defibrillator access, but the rollout has been slow. The charity ‘Hands for Life’ estimates that only 1 in 5 people in the UK could confidently use an AED. That is a scandal. In Sweden, the government has funded a national registry of defibrillators and a smartphone app to locate them. Here, we have a patchwork of local campaigns and good intentions.
Eriksen’s recovery is a miracle. But miracles are not random. They are made possible by investment: in the medical teams on standby, in the training of staff, in the placement of equipment. If we want more miracles, we need to stop treating defibrillators as optional extras. They should be as standard as smoke alarms. And they should be paid for, not by charities alone, but by the employers and authorities that profit from the people who work and live in their buildings.
The image of Eriksen lying still, his eyes closed, will stay with me. But so will that image of the medical team working together, using a simple machine to bring him back. That should be the new normal. Not a luxury, but a right.
This is not about football. It is about the price of not preparing. And that price is too high.
