French star reveals act that led to him going into cardiac arrest
NEWS: A loosehead prop for the French national team and Racing 92 suffered a cardiac arrest after taking snus (a smokeless tobacco product) over the summer.
Hassane Kolingar won three caps for France between 2020 and 2021, including a start against England at Twickenham in the Final of the Nations Cup.
With Stuart Lancaster’s Racing 92 in eighth place in the Top 14, with five wins from 13 league matches so far this campaign, Kolingar started in his side’s 36-24 loss against Toulon last weekend.
It occurred at the wedding of his Racing 92 teammate Ibrahim Diallo and required him to be shocked four times.
“When I got there [to the wedding], I stuck a snus against my gum and sat down while waiting for the bride and groom,” Kolingar told Midi Olympique.
“It’s not illegal – there’s tobacco in it but it’s real s***, I think. At one point, I burst out laughing and immediately felt pressure in my chest. My heart was beating hard and I was sweating a lot, seeing stars.
“I thought I was just having a hypoglycaemic episode and, so I would not ruin the ceremony, I moved aside. My eardrums were banging; I felt like someone was sticking needles in my head.
“I was in pain, really bad pain, and my eyes were rolling back,” Kolingar added. “I was going into cardiac arrest.”
Midi Olympique reported that Yoan Tanga and Henry Chavancy were among a group of players to tend to Kolingar.
“It was a tachycardia incident, basically,” added the 26-year-old. “Because my pulse wouldn’t go down, the firefighters put me into a coma. To wake me up, they shocked me four times.”
Initially taken to a hospital in Auxerre and transferred to the cardiology department of an institute in the Parisian suburb of Le Plessis-Robinson, Kolingar enlisted the services of a surgeon in Bordeaux to undertake a five-hour operation.
“The purpose of the operation was to clean the scar I had on my heart since birth,” he said. “To do that, [the surgeon] had to trigger a new cardiac arrest.”
*Snus is an oral smokeless tobacco product that is usually placed behind the upper lip, either in a loose form or in portioned sachets and is primarily used in Sweden and Norway.
