Fabrice Muamba collapsed live on TV at The Lane yesterday evening in what has been reported as a ‘cardiac incident’.
After an excruciating period of physios and medical staff attending him he was stretchered off and it was announced he was rushed to hospital. The scenes were chilling.
Not because he had some class of heart attack – in the UK alone there are about 275,000 heart attacks annually. So they are not uncommon by any stretch – but to witness one in the middle of a game of football is as about as disconcerting as it would be if it were the lady in front of you in the Post Office queue, or the man next to you in the cinema. Naturally there can’t be a ‘right’ place to have a heart attack but the cold reality is we all prefer a mental image of the unfortunate soul having it being in hospital, surrounded by medics and bleeping machines.
Twitter is a brilliant device as it has not only replaced in many ways the traditional news wires but it’s completely inclusive. You don’t need to be a colleague, friend or relation of either a journalist or an eyewitness in order to immediately share in news or opinion.
A good number of people have been gushing at the reaction of the supporters The Lane. A few understandably hesitant rounds of, ‘Fabrice Mauamba’. Since when has doing the right thing, the only thing been something worthy of praise? The crowd at The Lane have to my mind never been a nasty lot, but to celebrate not behaving badly actually made me feel uncomfortable. ‘A big well done for no one shouting out, ‘get up you girl.’
Last year at the time of a tsunami in South East Asia we had the laughable business of ‘#prayforJapan trending simultaneously with the latest Apple tablet. I suggested by Tweet that instead of a prayer, sending an appropriate charity the £400 or whatever the iPad cost would do more good. Maybe those who replied prayed at me and hence I failed to register their disgust.
I do not believe in the power of prayer. That said, I very much believe it’s mean spirited to mock or challenge something harmless that provides anyone with comfort. If a victim’s friends or family need to pray, good luck to them. but it’s fundamentally disingenuous of strangers to Tweet ‘#pray’ for anything. It’s a device to make them feel better about themselves. The effect on the poor sod surrounded by ambulance men or whatever is zero. Zip. Nada.
Hashtagging #pray is actually taking the p*ss. You walk past a homeless guy with a MacDonald’s cup in his hand. Let me break it to you a hashtag isn’t going to do it for him. In the first instance he needs some cash and the second he needs one or more government agencies to do their jobs properly.
What Fabrice and indeed the other 275,000 odd others who suddenly find themselves in the same horrible and terrifying boat is the attention of those genuinely remarkable individuals who have devoted themselves to medicine and the daily, infinite struggle of furthering human life.
Organised religion has an unquestionably abysmal history with medicine. It is still virtually impossible in 2012 to put an accurate figure upon how many human beings die annually because they refuse medical attention on religious grounds. But do be depressingly assured that you would run out of seats at White Hart Lane simply by attempting to accommodate the Jehovah’s Witnesses alone.
One cannot imagine Muamba’s his relatives must feel right now. If you genuinely want to contribute to the well being of your species then pay a bit more attention to what the politicians are up to when it comes to the tired old issue of healthcare.
Fabrice Muamba is in our thoughts. Let’s ensure our brains, our votes and our loose change when we have it to give are all contributing on a continuous basis to maintain and improve the quality of medical care we can offer each other.
just popped onto twitter to see if you’d linked this too your account and fairplay you wear your …… hmm bad analogy, you stick to your guns. While i agree that giving to relevant charities is more productive, twitter like any social media is a way to express feeling in a digital age to people you don’t know but want them to know your thinking about something. Hopefully when fabrice recovers he may be told about the hundreds of thousands #prayformuambas and realise it affected people all over the world and that they were praying for him to survive, this might be comfort to him who knows? lets not forget the lad is still critically ill, if people want to vent their support for him via this medium its not really for you to mock h, some of the content is right, no doubt, but it smacks of bad timing when he’s still fighting for his life and people are still rallying for him to survive a lesser we wish him well may have been more appropriate.
For those who wish to pray…pray on.
To send best wishes……….send on.
To have in your thoughts…..have on.
Everyone last night acted with sympathy and decorum, HH takes a contraversial angle on the subject to inject debate no matter how insensitave. Remember HH is the guy still trying to sell cheap t-shirts to the despairing Bolton fans as they leave the ground after such a tragedy.
BTW HH- as of a minute ago there were over 10,000 “Likes” and over 700 comments on the club facebook page- god knows how many tweets-that is a lot of grief vultures…
Evidently so.
I am not religious at all, but when I think of pray, I think of it as another word for ‘wishing’, hoping that he’ll recover.
Why do you insist on having an opinion on every post, why can’t you just report the incident and wish him well!!?
It really is not the time to question religion or it’s problems or moralize to readers in my opinion and in that sense your post is in poor taste.
The focus should ONLY be on the man’s speedy recovery.
People have become far too precious. I am certainly not going to argue with anyone religious but why do those who believe feel its fine to impress their views on others when those who don’t are degenerates who have no soul.
I think if you read what HH has written you will find he wishes the boy the best. In my book that’s just as powerful as prayer.
I would imagine everyone wants the same thing, Fabrice to be sitting up in bed reading about what has happened to him with a grin on his face.
I personally hope their is a god, so once I’ve died and am being judged by him, I get the opportunity to smack him in the face.
Good Luck Fabrice, we are all willing you a speedy recovery.
God does care and he does listen to us. There are many reasons why some prayers are answered and others are not, but we must step out in faith, trusting, to ask God to be a part of our lives, to be in relationship with us, which he so longs to be. Christ was sent to us because he cares, because he wanted to walk among us, even suffer among us, to bring us new life. Even Christ prayed while he was here. What makes you greater than God, our Father?
Jerard no doubt that you mean well. That I’m willing to believe. But can’t you understand that HH who has similar but not the same outlook as I is hoping for exactly the same thing.The recovery of a young lad. He wanted to distance himself from the religious aspect that has to surround any tragedy that occurs, its become a “towing the party line” aspect.And I for one respect that. Please don’t tell me he is my God as well because I find that as offensive as a Nazi telling me we are all the master race. The Bible to me is a good story, an old book, nothing more.
to me its a morale excuse that allows warmongering peadophilia, hatred and fear oh and its bollocks
I’m with celbray on this 100% a right load of bollocks that prays on disaster to continue it’s recruitment campaign….BIOYGFC! and get well soon Fabrice Muamba…..
CALEBRAY & HARTS The diplomatic corps awaits!
It’s life Jim but not as we know it….. ;-)
I’m a fifth ape on a pale blue dot.
How very fascinating to meet you.
Oh,for whoever’s sake, it was bad enough to see a guy collapse and for all we knew die in a public arena, now we have a disciple using this as an opportunity to evangelise about Jesus and God-All I hope is that God has enough on his plate trying to fix all the ill’s religion has inflicted on the human race to be bothered about punishing Harry for publishing his own perspective on last nights tragedy!
god does move in mysterious ways, such as dinosaurs, the appendix and nipples on men. I am delighted that your idea of god brings something to your life DO NOT EXPECT EVERYONE ELSE TO FEEL THE SAME