Muamba ‘very much alive’

Bolton midfielder Fabrice Muamba, speaking for the first time since going into cardiac arrest during a game, said “I’m very much alive.” Muamba’s heart stopped beating on its own for 78 minutes during last month’s FA Cup match at Tottenham, but he has recovered to walk out of the hospital earlier this week. The 24-year-old Muamba told Sunday’s edition of The Sun newspaper that he “had no pain whatsoever” before collapsing. Then he started to see double. He said: “I just felt myself falling through the air and then felt two big thumps as my head hit the ground in front of me, then that was it. Blackness, nothing.” Muamba said “for 78 minutes I was dead and even if I lived was expected to have suffered brain damage, but I’m very much alive.” – AP