- Bronny James went into cardiac arrest and was taken to the hospital during a Monday basketball practice.
- He is now in stable condition and is no longer in the ICU, according to a statement from a family spokesperson.
LeBron James' son Bronny James is in stable condition after he went into cardiac arrest on the court on Monday, a family spokesperson told Insider.
"Yesterday while practicing, Bronny James suffered a cardiac arrest," according to a statement shared by a family spokesperson.
The statement said that medical staff treated Bronny James — a rising freshman for the USC Trojans — and took him to the hospital where he was admitted into the ICU.
According to TMZ, the 911 call for James was made at 9:26 a.m. local time from the Galen Center, where the USC Men's Basketball team plays and practices. At the time of the call, James was unconscious, TMZ reported.
He is now in stable condition and is no longer in the ICU, the statement said.
—Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) July 25, 2023
Though interest in the budding Trojans star initially stemmed from his father — a Los Angeles Lakers superstar who broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's all-time NBA scoring record last season — Bronny James is an impressive basketball player in his own right.
A 6-foot-3, 180-pound point guard, the younger James was ranked No. 20 in ESPN's Class of 2023 coming out of basketball powerhouse Sierra Canyon High School in Los Angeles. After averaging 14.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, 2.4 assists, and 1.8 steals per game during his senior season, James committed to play for his hometown program, USC, and head coach Andy Enfield.
The 18-year-old was widely expected to be a top pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, and there was speculation that his father could try to join him on whichever team selects him. But how Bronny's health scare impacts his first season as a Trojan and, beyond that, his professional basketball prospects still remains to be seen.
Though cardiac arrests are rare in people under the age of 30, they are far from unprecedented among athletes during the course of competition. At the beginning of 2023, 24-year-old Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field during a January game in Cincinnati.
Hamlin was later revealed to have suffered commotio cordis, a rare but life-threatening cardiac event that sometimes occurs upon chest impact at the precise moment when the heart is between beats. But according to research published in 2019, there are several underlying conditions — including undiagnosed heart disease or genetic abnormalities, which are exacerbated by intense exercise and physical stress — that may have led to James' health scare.
In some cases, underlying conditions could prevent athletes from returning to competition. Manchester City legend Sergio Aguero, for example, was forced to retire from professional soccer after chest discomfort during a game turned out to be a cardiac arrhythmia.
What caused James' cardiac arrest is still unclear, but he is undoubtedly fortunate to have survived Monday's incident. Out-of-hospital cardiac arrests are fatal nearly 90% of the time, according to the American Heart Association.
But athletes who suffer cardiac arrests tend to have better outcomes, with the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation reporting that 43.8% of athletes who experienced sudden cardiac arrests and were attended to by paramedics between 2009 and 2014 survived and were discharged from the hospital.