Brain-damaged Spurs player wins court battle after heart attack on pitch

Radwan Hamed

February 17 – A former apprentice with English Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur has won a huge damages claim after a cardiac arrest nine years ago left him with brain damage.

Radwan Hamed collapsed in August 2006 while playing for the club’s youth team in Belgium. His brain was deprived of oxygen for 16 minutes until an ambulance arrived with a defibrillator.

The court heard that an ECG (electrocardiogram) scan 11 months earlier had shown Hamed’s heart to be abnormal but neither the striker nor his parents were made aware of the problem. A High Court judge has now ruled Tottenham breached its duties to the player, who was 17 at the time and playing in his first game for the club.

The incident occurred six years before the high-profile case of Fabrice Muamba, the former Bolton Wanderers player who made a miraculous recovery after collapsing, ironically at Tottenham, in an FA cup tie. On that occasion Spurs were praised for the speed with which Muamba was treated.

In the case of Hamed, his father claimed the injury resulted from the negligence of Dr Peter Mills, a Football Association cardiologist who had screened his son, and of specialist sports physicians employed by Tottenham. Damages, which could reach £7m, are to be decided next week. Both parties were deemed jointly liable.

A spokesman for Tottenham said the club “wholeheartedly regrets that a former employee, as adjudged, was remiss in their duties to Radwan.”

“This judgment will hopefully now secure the best possible treatment and care for him. The club has been supportive of Radwan and his family over the past 10 years and we wish them well for the future.”

Speaking outside court, Hamed’s father Raymon, said: “We are relieved more than happy that it is over. If you can imagine, a young man having everything taken away overnight and you didn’t know about it [the cause]. We had to pick up all the pieces. It is the hardest bit. We couldn’t help him because we didn’t know.”

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