In a development that has shaken the sporting world to its very foundations and, indeed, sent a collective shiver of genuine existential dread through every living room from Pinner to Papua New Guinea, Danish midfield maestro Christian Eriksen has been reported as stable and recovering after his heart decided to stage a dramatic walkout during Denmark's opening match of the European Championship.
What happened, in the parlance of our times, was a 'cardiac event'. But to call it merely an event is to undersell the sheer, stomach-churning horror of watching a supremely fit athlete, a man whose job is literally to run around for 90 minutes, suddenly become a crumpled, lifeless puppet on the hallowed turf of Parken Stadium.
Now, normally when a footballer goes down, you expect a rolled ankle or a bit of theatrical clutching of the shin. But this was different. This was the real deal. This was the grim reaper, in his finest Puma tracksuit, deciding to make a tackle so savage it transcended the boundaries of sport and entered the realm of pure, unadulterated tragedy.
But here's where the story takes a turn that is, for once, almost uplifting. Amidst the chaos, the sheer unravelling of the beautiful game into a scene of desperate, primal fear, there was a flash of something resembling competence. The hasty summoning of medical personnel, the urgent ministrations, the deployment of the defibrillator. And then, crucially, the rapid transfer to Rigshospitalet.
And who gets the credit? In my notes, scrawled in a mixture of gin and adrenaline, I see the words 'British medical protocols'. Yes, dear reader, the very same NHS that is perpetually on its knees, that is starved of funding and peppered with targets, has apparently exported its template for dealing with cardiac arrests on football pitches.
Let us savour this irony. A nation that can barely get an ambulance to a pensioner who has been lying on a cold floor for 24 hours, has somehow managed to provide the blueprint for saving the life of a million-pound footballer in front of a global audience. Oh, the glorious, absurd theatre of it all.
Eriksen, we are told, is 'stable'. Which is, I suppose, the medical equivalent of 'we've managed to stop the leak for now'. He is conscious. He is communicating. He reportedly even had the presence of mind to request that his teammates finish the match. To which I can only say: typical Dane. Even when their heart has just executed a coup d'état, they're still worried about letting the side down.
Meanwhile, the football world has been plunged into a collective bout of introspection. Pundits are trying to find the words. They are failing, mostly, but they are trying. Fans are weeping into their Carlsbergs. And somewhere, in a boardroom in Zurich, a gaggle of suits is doubtless having a very serious discussion about what this means for insurance premiums.
But let us not get bogged down in the mire of sentimentality. This is a news report, after all. The key takeaway is that a man nearly died on live television, but thanks to some very rapid response times and a bit of luck, he didn't. The system, for once, worked. And now we can all go back to pretending that football really matters.
For now, though, we count our blessings. We give thanks to the medical teams, Danish and British, who stood between a beloved footballer and the great void. And we raise a glass of something strong to Christian Eriksen, who reminded us that even in the midst of our ridiculous, trivial, glorious obsession with a game, there are things far more important.
Like breathing. And having a heartbeat. And the sheer, dumb luck of being in the right place at the right time when your body decides to betray you.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need a drink. Several, in fact. This breaking news has left me feeling decidedly unwell.
