Los Angeles Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh briefly left Sunday afternoon’s game against the Denver Broncos because of a flare up with atrial flutter, a type of heart arrhythmia that makes the heart beat irregularly fast.
Harbaugh, 60, was spotted walking into his team’s medical tent shortly before the game’s opening kickoff and then walking to the locker room minutes later, flanked by three members of the team’s medical staff.
He returned later in the first quarter and continued to coach the remainder of the game.
After the Chargers’ 23-16 win over the Broncos, Harbaugh told reporters he began feeling symptoms on Saturday night and then “could tell there were some irregular beats” with his heart during the pregame warmups, so he went to the medical tent to consult with the team’s medical staff.
“Everything turned out to be OK,” the NFL coach said. “I deal with this, I guess minor…it’s called atrial flutter and I got into an episode today with it. Doctors checked me out and it got back into sinus rhythm, normal rhythm, so I came back.”
Harbaugh said he received an IV treatment, as well as an EKG from paramedics who cleared him to return to the game.
The coach knew what he was feeling because he’s felt it before, he told reporters. Harbaugh said when he was the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers in 2012, he also felt the same arrhythmia during a Monday Night Football game against the Chicago Bears.
Harbaugh’s team won that game as well, prompting the longtime coach to joke Sunday that he’s now “2-0 with arrhythmias.”
The longtime NFL quarterback-turned-coach needed to have an ablation after the 2012 incident, he said, because his heart “didn’t go back into rhythm.” Harbaugh also had an ablation in 1999 when he was a player for the Chargers, he told reporters, adding that given his timeline he figured he may have another episode soon.
“I figured I was getting to the 13-year mark and I was going to need another [ablation] at some point,” Harbaugh said.
The coach told reporters that Chargers general manager Joe Hortiz called Harbaugh’s brother, Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh, to let him know about the issue, and happened to dial him during his team’s postgame press conference. John then called their parents to let them know he was having an episode, Harbaugh said.
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Chargers players said they were mostly unaware of the situation until they were asked about it after the game.
“He’s tough,” starting quarterback Justin Herbert said. “He did a really good job of hiding that then because I was unaware of it. They did a good job of keeping calm. I hope he’s okay.”
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