How trainer Yakub Dalim saved Bangladesh cricketer Tamim Iqbal’s life after heart attack

Tragedy was averted as what first appeared to be minor chest pains, before Bangladesh cricketer Tamim Iqbal suddenly suffered a massive heart attack, and it took some quick thinking from his trainer, Yakub Chowdhury Dalim, which ultimately saved the player’s life.

On March 24, Iqbal had complained about chest pains, which saw him taken to the hospital during a Dhaka Premier League match in Bangladesh.

On his journey to the hospital, Iqbal subsequently lost consciousness.

It was then that the Mohammedan Sporting Club trainer sprang into action to save Iqbal.

Heroic CPR saves cricket star Tamim Iqbal after heart attack

“The match started around 9 a.m. After warming up, Tamim seemed a bit uncomfortable. He said, ‘I’m feeling some chest pain. Can I get a gas medicine?’ He took it, but the pain didn’t go away. Then he said, ‘I think I should go to the hospital,’” recalled Dalim to SportsBoom.com.

Iqbal had been talking up to that point, but the moment they entered the administration building at the cricket ground, he suffered what would later be identified as a heart attack.

“I asked him again and again, ‘Tamim Bhai, can you hear me?’ Nothing. No movement, no reaction. That’s when I knew—this was serious. I checked for a pulse. Nothing. He wasn’t breathing either. In that moment, I realised—he was having a massive cardiac arrest. I didn’t waste a second.

“I started CPR right away because I knew if I hesitated, we could lose him. The helicopter hadn’t arrived yet. I pressed down hard on his chest, over and over, for about two to three minutes. Just then, I heard the helicopter landing on the athletic track.”

Dalim also paid credit to the fast driving of the ambulance driver.

“At the same time, match referee Debu Da was doing everything he could. He asked me what was happening, and I told him, ‘It’s bad.’ Another doctor at BKSP, Samir Bhai, came over. He saw me doing CPR and said, ‘ Get him to the hospital as soon as possible.”

“Then someone suggested putting him in the helicopter. But I immediately snapped, ‘If we put him in that helicopter, we’re going to lose him.’ We didn’t have time for that. We had to get to the hospital—fast. I turned to Debu Da and said, ‘We need to move now. If I stop CPR, his other organs will fail. His brain won’t get oxygen.”

Quick thinking averts tragedy

Despite Iqbal seeming unresponsive, Dalim never gave up.

“I kept my cool, kept pressing, didn’t stop for a second. The ambulance rushed toward the hospital. Tamim was still unresponsive. I kept going—five, six rounds of CPR. Then I tried mouth breathing. First time, nothing. The second time—he gasped. A deep, heavy gasp. At that moment, it felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest.

“If we had taken him on the helicopter, if he had lost consciousness mid-air, I wouldn’t have been able to do CPR, wouldn’t have been able to breathe for him.”

Once at the hospital, Iqbal was given DC shock treatment and had an angiogram. It showed that one of his coronary arteries was completely blocked, and a partial blockage in another artery. He immediately had surgery, and since then his condition has been stable as he continues his recovery.

And thanks to the quick-thinking of Dalim, Iqbal will live to tell the tale.

@Michael_Sherman

IOL Sport