Olympic coach has heart attack celebrating gold medal win as medics rush to save his life
Britt Jones
Featured Image Credit: Getty Images/Mustafa Ciftci/Anadolu/Alex Nicodim/Sportsfile
A coach's Olympic celebrations were cut terrifyingly short when he went from euphoria over his athlete's gold medal to having a heart attack.
Tulkin Kilichev represents Uzbekistan’s Hasanboy Dusmatov in the boxing category, and was celebrating when Dusmatov won gold.
The pair were living the Olympic dream, until something terrible occurred.
As they were cheering at the warm-up area, their tone suddenly changed.
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According to reports, there were cheers heard which then turned into cries for help.
That’s when Team GB physiotherapist Robbie Lillis and Dr Harj Singh ran over to the area to find Kilichev in cardiac arrest.
The medics performed CPR and used a defibrillator in a bid to bring his back to life.
The 41-year-old was then rushed to hospital and is thankfully believed to be recovering and stable.
But how did such a happy moment turn into a nightmare?
Lillis told press: "There was a cry for a doctor, for help. Harj was the first person who responded and I followed with the emergency trauma bag that we carry with us.
"Quite a lot of coaches were pretty visibly distressed around the whole situation, so it took us a moment to clear all of them out of the way.
"Initially he didn't come back but, about 20 to 30 seconds later, after Harj continued doing CPR, all of a sudden he came back conscious with us, which was great.
"Speed is the essence of it. I'm very, very thankful that we did have all the equipment on us, and myself and Harj being there and being trained."
Lillis revealed his mom said something totally magical after he kept his cool in the horrifying situation.
He recalled: "My mom said a really nice thing, she said, 'that's your Olympic moment'.
"It's something obviously I'll definitely remember, I don't think I'm going to be forgetting that any time soon."
Singh said that the situation 'puts things into perspective.'
"At some stage we will endeavour to go to the hospital," the doctor said.
"If it could be arranged, I think that would be quite emotional for both of us."
According to the British Heart Foundation, there are certain signs you should look out for to safe a life when someone is going into cardiac arrest.
These include pain in your chest that doesn't go away; the pain spreading to your left or right arm, your neck or your jaw; and feeling sick or short of breath.
If you notice anyone having these symptoms, emergency services should be called immediately.