When BJ Thompson suffered a seizure during a Chiefs team meeting Thursday, kicker Harrison Butker played a critical role in alerting medical personnel within the training room.
He “immediately ran” toward that space and grabbed assistant athletic trainers Julie Frymyer and David Glover — in addition to vp of sports performance and medicine Rick Burkholder — to help, and other medical professionals later joined them, Burkholder told reporters, in response to NFL Network.
“As a team, we tried to stabilize BJ and put him on the ground while he was still seizing,” Burkholder said. “Then he went into cardiac arrest. Our team of that group of individuals provided CPR for him, he had one AD shock and got here back so he was only in cardiac arrest for lower than a minute — minute and a half.
“Our players, our security staff, everybody involved, coaches and staff, they were phenomenal in handling the crisis.”
Earlier Thursday, Thompson suffered the seizure and went into cardiac arrest during a special teams meeting, which prompted the Chiefs to cancel the remaining of their team activities Thursday before resuming their OTAs on Friday.
Thompson was “awake and responsive” Friday, just over 12 hours after his agent told NFL Network in one other statement that Thompson hadn’t regained consciousness yet but was stable.
He was on a ventilator overnight, in response to Burkholder, and the Chiefs had just, by likelihood, practiced their emergency motion plan Monday — something they’re required to do multiple times each season.
Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo said Thursday that “it was scary” and added that “the blokes were just a little bit scared,” in response to Fox 4 Kansas City.
“I do know I used to be,” the previous Giants defensive coordinator and interim head coach said.
Thompson was a fifth-round pick of Stephen F. Austin in 2023, and he recorded two tackles during his lone appearance — a Week 18 win — last yr.
“We don’t have a diagnosis, and in medicine sometimes you don’t have that,” Burkholder said. “After which like I said, he’s awake and he’s alert, and he’s headed in absolutely the right direction.”
And Butker, a three-time Super Bowl champion whose controversial commencement speech — which described “homemaker” as some of the necessary roles for ladies, amongst other comments that were described by some as homophobic and sexist — at Benedictine College generated loads of attention earlier this offseason, definitely helped together with his quick pondering.
