Montclair Rugby Player Who Collapsed At Game Recovering: GoFundMe

MONTCLAIR, NJ — Over the weekend, Tevita Bryce, 28, was competing with the Montclair Rugby Football Club when he set up a pass, kicked the ball — and immediately collapsed.

"He fell to his knees first, so everyone thinks he's just gassed or hurt his leg or something," Jake Feury, who plays for the opposing team, Morris Rugby, told Goff Rugby Report. "Then he falls to the ground and looks worse."

A medical trainer for Morris, spectators and other players jumped in to help.

They "immediately coordinated what they were doing" by performing chest compressions and airway breaths and checking Bryce's pulse, Feury said.

Bryce received two shocks from an automated external defibrillator (AED) to restart his heart, but he had no pulse when he was transported to St. Clare's Denville Hospital, the Morristown Daily Record reported.

But Bryce survived.

Surgeons cleared an artery in his groin, then "moved all the way up to his heart," Lopeti Tu'ipulotu wrote in a GoFundMe she set up for Bryce's recovery expenses.

While in the intensive care unit, Bryce had another heart attack on the operation table and was brought back again after four shocks with an AED, Tu'ipulotu said.

He was released from the intensive care unit on Tuesday, Tu'ipulotu said in the GoFundMe, which has already amassed $58,000 in donations.

"Tevita has only been working for 4 weeks in the US and his insurance benefits have not kicked in yet," Tu'ipulotu wrote. "Will be a long road to recovery but thankfully he’s alive."

Donate here.

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