Planning, practice — and fast action from a teammate — saved Chiefs’ DE BJ Thompson

When the Kansas City Chiefs’ second-year defensive end BJ Thompson went through a medical emergency during a meeting of the special teams unit on Thursday, a group of team employees was fully prepared to spring into action.

“The NFL mandates that we do these emergency action plans for every team in the league — home, away and in the practice facilities,” Rick Burkholder explained to reporters after the final OTA session on Friday afternoon. “We are mandated to practice multiple times a year.”

The team’s vice-president for sports medicine and performance said his emergency action team consists of himself, trainers Julie Frymyer, David Glover, Tiffany Morton and Evan Kraft — along with Kansas University Medical Center Dr. J.P. Darsh, who maintains an office in the facility.

On Thursday, these trained professionals also had some luck working in their favor.

“We practiced on Monday with a group called Walters, Inc.,” revealed Burkholder, “who comes [in to] educate us — and goes through scenarios like the one we went through yesterday.”

But in this case, the heroic actions of placekicker Harrison Butker also played a role. He immediately ran to the training room to notify Frymyer and Glover.

“Harrison is that guy,” marveled safety Justin Reid. “He loves all of us. We’re a family. This is so much deeper than just football. We root for each other — and in a moment like that, you just have to call yourself to action. Harrison did that.”

Head coach Andy Reid wasn’t in the room for the meeting but arrived soon after the emergency began.

“I was able to be right there,” he said. “I jumped in from my office; I came down and popped in. I’m not much help — but they had it under control.”

Burkholder continued the narrative.

“As a team, we tried to stabilize BJ — and then put him on the floor while he was still seizing,” he recalled. “Then he went into cardiac arrest. Our team — including that group of people — provided CPR for him. He had one AED shock and came back. He was only in cardiac arrest for probably less than a minute, a minute and a half.”

Then Thompson was rushed to KU Medical Center in the care of paramedics who regularly participate in the team’s emergency drills.

“He was heavily sedated yesterday through the night,” noted Burkholder. “They brought him out of sedation this morning. He was on a ventilator overnight — just so he could breathe because he was so heavily sedated.

“He’s alert. He’s awake. He’s coming through quite well. We don’t have a diagnosis — [but] in medicine, sometimes you don’t have that.”

The head coach believes the team did the right thing when it canceled Thursday’s practice.

“I think it was good to get them out of here yesterday,” he reflected. “We have support people who could help — if needed — for what they saw, which wasn’t pleasant to see and watch. That support was available for them.

“They came back today with good energy — and we’ve kept them informed all the way through.”

Just like we see in the team’s victories, the encouraging result from Thursday’s emergency resulted from planning, training, practice and love — along with a little luck.