Flinders cricketer Ed Donnelly collapses on field but survives

A Mornington Peninsula cricketer whose heart stopped in a game says he owes his life to teammates and a police officer in the opposition team.

Ed Donnelly (middle) with Rye players Leighton Richardson (left) and Jeff Marshall, who helped save his life.

It was a normal game of local cricket — until desperate, urgent yelling rang out.

The Mornington Peninsula Cricket Association C3 game between Flinders and Rye at Bittern on January 22 suddenly became a life and death situation for Flinders player Ed Donnelly.

The 55-year-old had just sprinted 30 metres to save a boundary and was returning to his fielding position when he collapsed.

His heart had stopped.

“Everyone was ready for the next ball and we hear someone shout, ‘hang on, wait’,” Flinders captain Clint Munday said.

“And we look around and Ed was laying on his back and we just thought he might be just having a bit of a rest…but we started yelling out, ‘are you alright, Ed?’ He wasn’t moving and didn’t respond.

“It looked like he’d been knocked out, you know when footy players get knocked out and they have the stiff arms and stiff legs, he was like that.”

The gravity of the situation soon became evident as teammates rushed to his aid.

Flinders players Brent Jarrett and Jamie Selth performed CPR as Donnelly went in and out of consciousness.

Munday, who suffered a similar fate in a game in 2003 and subsequently had part of a leg amputated, immediately went to fetch the defibrillator from the clubrooms.

Rye player Leighton Richardson, a police officer, took control of the situation as wet towels were run out and a marquee was brought to shade the stricken player from the hot sun.

An ambulance arrived and Donnelly was taken to Peninsula Private Hospital, where he underwent surgery to have a pacemaker inserted.

His life had been saved.

Ed Donnelly (middle) and his wife Bronny with Rye cricketer Leighton Richardson (left). Picture: Rye CC

Donnelly, a dentist, is on the road to recovery.

He said he owes his life to all of the “fantastic” players and paramedics.

On Saturday — a week after the incident — Donnelly and his wife Bronny drove to Rye to thank the players who helped save his life.

“It was more for their peace of mind as well, I think they were very, very pleased to see us and happy to see a good outcome in the end,” Donnelly said.

Donnelly says his memory of the incident is hazy.

“I fielded a ball and was running back to my position and that’s when everything just went black and the next minute I woke up and was on the ground with some of the guys around me trying to help me out,” Donnelly said.

“My heart had a little electrical fault in it, so it basically just stopped beating.

“A lot of people think I’ve had a heart attack but it wasn’t a congestive problem as far as the heart is concerned, that’s all fairly healthy, but the electrical circuit in my heart basically failed and I went into ventricle standstill so the heart basically stopped and it doesn’t take long until you fall away.

Clint Munday.

“CPR got it back beating a couple of times.”

For Munday, the incident was “a bit too close to home”, eerily similar to when his aorta burst while he was batting in a semi-final at Mt Eliza.

It was only the fact that the umpire, Sam Kumar, was a doctor that he survived.

Munday subsequently had to have part of a leg amputated after complications with blood clots.

Ironically, last week’s game was a one-off for him; he was filling in after the club was short of players.

Munday said Donnelly’s collapse stirred deep emotions.

“It’s a bit close to home for me,” he said.

“I had a bit of a blub and I just started thinking what happened for me and what the players must have been going through back then.’’

Munday said all the players did an amazing job in difficult circumstances last week.

“We may have all been running around like headless chooks — that’s probably what it would have looked like from afar — but everyone did what they had to do until the ambulance got there,” he said.

“I remember guys were running over wet towels and they grabbed a marquee tent and got that to try and get him in some shade.”

Donnelly, who has been playing for Flinders for two decades, wants to return to the cricket field.

“I’d certainly go back to it next season, for sure,” he said.