Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh’s heart scare at Empower Field didn’t just surprise fans. It surprised QB Justin Herbert, too. “Is he all right?”
Denver Post
Jim Harbaugh didn’t have the heart to tell Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert he’d left Sunday’s game.
“He did a really good job of hiding it because I was unaware of it,” the Bolts QB said after Los Angeles held off the Broncos, 23-16, on Sunday at Empower Field. “They did a good job of keeping calm and I hope he’s OK.”
With that, Herbert, who threw for 237 yards against a Broncos defense that lost Pro Bowl cornerback Pat Surtain II to a concussion in the first quarter, flashed a look of genuine concern.
“Is he all right?” Herbert asked reporters in the visiting team news conference room.
“He’s fine,” a reporter replied.
“He’s had it before …” another added.
Cue a second concerned look.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” the quarterback said. “‘Calm down. Let’s get that cleared up.'”
Harbaugh, 60, left the visiting sideline in the first quarter and was escorted to the Chargers’ blue medical tent. Shortly thereafter, the longtime coach was escorted to the Bolts’ locker room, where he remained for much of the game’s opening eight or nine minutes. Defensive coordinator Jesse Minter managed the game while Harbaugh received treatment for what he called an atrial flutter, which causes the upper chambers of the heart to beat 250 to 350 times per minute.
The coach returned to the sideline later in the first quarter and finished the game without incident.
“Everything turned out to be OK,” Harbaugh recalled later. “Doctors checked me out, and it got back into sinus rhythm — normal rhythm.”
Harbaugh said he’d undergone ablations for arrhythmia in 2012 and 1999, and that he could tell during pregame warmups Sunday that his heartbeat was off.
“I’m not good at taking my own pulse,” the coach continued, “so, (a staffer) just took the pulse and it was in (the range of) the arrhythmia. But I felt like we were good. And then they said, ‘No, we need to get an EKG.’ So, trust the doctors, you know? If you’re not gonna trust your doctors, who are you gonna trust?”
Harbaugh said he received an IV and that Marco Zucconi, the team’s director of player health, wellness and performance, “gave me some kind of magnesium thing.”
Paramedics at Empower treated the Chargers coach in the locker room and checked his heart to make sure it got back to sinus rhythm, the coach recalled.
“And, I said, ‘I feel good,'” Harbaugh continued, “so I got back out there on the field.”
While Harbaugh was being taken to the locker room, the Chargers had taken the ball from the Broncos via a Bo Nix interception 1:23 into the game. The Bolts drove 39 yards on nine plays but were stoned in the red zone as the Broncos defense forced fourth-and-goal at the 2. Minter elected to kick a 20-yard field goal, giving the visitors a quick 3-0 lead.
In November 2012, while Harbaugh was coaching the 49ers, he’d reportedly experienced a heart flutter on a Wednesday evening of their prep week for a Monday night tussle against the Chicago Bears. Harbaugh missed a Thursday practice to have what was described as “a minor procedure,” but returned to work the next day. The Niners went on to drub the Bears, 32-7.
“2-0 with arrhythmias,” Harbaugh cracked.
The coach said he planned to see a cardiologist on Monday for a follow-up examination.
Herbert recalled Harbaugh mentioning Saturday night that his heart felt different, but had largely laughed it off. The Mayo Clinic’s website says altitude can worsen some irregular heart rhythms.
“He just said he was really excited for the game,” said Herbert, whose older brother Mitchell graduated earlier this year from Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. “He said his blood was flowing, and he was excited. So I thought everything was good to go. But that’s definitely something he should get checked out.”
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