The Rangers prospect who collapsed and died during a hockey game in Russia had a heart condition – and paramedics didn’t have a defibrillator that might have saved his life, officials said yesterday.
Alexei Cherepanov, who died Monday playing for Avangard Omsk in a Continental Hockey League game outside Moscow, apparently had chronic ischemia – a medical condition where not enough blood gets to the heart or other organs, a regional investigator said.
Cherepanov’s agent said NHL tests showed him to be healthy.
Pavel Krasheninnikov, who sits on the Russian Hockey Federation’s supervisory council, said there was no ambulance on duty at the arena where Cherepanov was playing, and when emergency workers finally did show, they didn’t have a defibrillator.
Former Rangers captain Jaromir Jagr played a shift with Cherepanov and was talking to him on the bench when the teen suddenly collapsed.