A smalltime MMA fighter claims that on Friday night he temporarily died in the octagon after he suffered kidney failure when his heart stopped beating.
That fighter, Clovis "CJ" Hancock, collapsed during the preliminary round of a competition for the Texas-based promotion Legacy Fighting Alliance. After he went down he was revived by the ringside medical staff. According to The Guardian, Hancock says that paramedics had to restart his heart twice (via CPR and a defibrillator) following his collapse. From there he was taken to a hospital where doctors diagnosed him with dehydration and kidney failure.
After this undoubtedly miserable ordeal was finished (or at least the hospital portion of it was) Hancock returned home where he detailed his experience on Facebook. "I died tonight in the cage," he wrote. "My heart stopped, and I had kidney failure, they did CPR and hit me with the defibrillator twice and brought me back.
“Doc says I shouldn’t fight again. I’m broken. I guess I’ll just be a coach from now on."
Hancock further went on to say that these issues perhaps/probably came from the "hard weight cut" that he put himself through to get into fighting shape. At the time of his bout, he weighed 170 pounds. However, in a Facebook post, where he says he was injected with eight bags of saline solution by doctors, he said he's "back up to 206."
On top of that, Ed Soares, the CEO of Legacy Fighting Alliance, added that Hancock went down after he absorbed a body kick from his opponent. "After the kick landed, there was a few second delay, and then he collapsed in the cage," Soares said in a statement. "Our cutman David Maldonado immediately recognized the problem and signaled to the medical team sitting cageside. They were able to resuscitate and stabilize CJ and took him to the hospital via ambulance where they determined he had suffered kidney failure."
