Outrage Follows Kolonics's Death

The sudden death of the sportsman, a potential gold medalist, made headlines in the international press (including Sports Illustrated, The New York Times and ESPN) and proved controversial in Hungary, as to who bears responsibility for the tragedy.Kolonics, according to the first reports, died from heart failure, after collapsing in his canoe during a training exercise. He lost consciousness, and paramedics were unable to resuscitate him. 

Later last week, Kolonics’s trainer, Róbert Ludasi, blamed the ambulance service for the tragedy, saying that paramedics only arrived 37 minutes after they were called, and they didn’t have a defibrillator in the car.

Bandages found

The National Ambulance Service (OMSz), denied that in an open letter, saying they were there in 17 minutes, and started defibrillating Kolonics within 19 minutes. 

They also said that bandages were found on Kolonics’s body, the existence of which were explicitly denied by Ludasi. As it was later revealed, the bandages were used to reduce muscular fatigue.

“Using plasters to eclipse muscular fatigue for a man, who already had heart problems [Kolonics reportedly had a history of fainting during training] is potentially dangerous, as it shades the body’s signals of when to stop, before the operation of the heart collapses,” a family doctor, who talked to us on the condition of anonymity, told The Budapest Sun. 

A few days later on Monday (July 21), opposition party Fidesz also joined in, implicitly claiming that the government was responsible for the tragedy.

“The Gyurcsány government’s broadside against the Ambulance Service started in 2002, and resulted in a lower service standard,” Fidesz MP Zsolt Horváth told a news conference. 

He pressed for the government to ensure that every citizen has access to an ambulance within 15 minutes of an emergency call being made."

Source: Budapest Sun