Ben Rienstra was told two weeks after Christian Eriksen collapsed due to a heart attack at the European Championships that he was suffering from a heart problem. The ground sank under the feet of Fortuna Sittard’s midfielder. Rienstra wondered if he could ever play football again and was on an emotional roller coaster for six weeks. “I was already writing my will, so to speak,” admits Rienstra.
As a result of Eriksen’s cardiac arrest, Fortuna insisted on a thorough check of the players’ hearts, after which Rienstra was told the bad news by the club doctor that an abnormality in the heart rhythm of Fortuna’s captain had been detected. In the hospital in Maastricht, after an exercise test and a heart film, it was concluded that he was lucky. His heart showed an inexplicable response to exertion. “A bolt from the blue”, says Rienstra half a year later in conversation with Football International.
“I just felt good. A few days earlier I was still running for miles,” the midfielder continues. “Suddenly I couldn’t do anything anymore. I dared nothing more. My confidence in my own body was gone. I didn’t dare get in the car, or even walk a bit to the supermarket.” The image of Eriksen, who remained motionless on the ground during Denmark’s European Championship match against Finland, caused both fear and relief. “I was happy that my parents, wife and children would be spared that.”
Rienstra also had the example of Daley Blind in mind and contacted his former teammate in the youth of Ajax. The midfielder asked for a second opinion from doctors and then went on an emotional roller coaster. “Everything goes through your head: will I be able to trust my body again? I’m 31, have two young children, is it worth it to me? It’s not about a knee injury, of course.”
The doubts of the Fortuna player kept coming. “I called the head of medical affairs Jeroen Dieteren. He said ‘Just do your thing, just don’t exert yourself’. But hey, that doctor hadn’t warned me for nothing. All you hear is: I can’t do anything anymore. And you think: I’m going to die. It was very heavy. I was already writing my will, so to speak.” At the end of the studies, he was given the green light after an MRI scan. “That one was good. According to the cardiologist I have a strong heart, nothing crazy was found. No more reason to be afraid.”
Rienstra knows why there was a difference between the diagnoses in Maastricht and Amsterdam. “The first doctor did not specialize in sports. He saw a deviation and boom, hit the red button. I get that, because nobody wants to take responsibility if something were to happen.” In Amsterdam the conclusion was drawn that the heart of the midfielder is simply healthy. At the end of August he made his comeback against RKC Waalwijk (2-2) and now the counter stands at seventeen games for Fortuna this season.