Sting Support Act's Drummer Suffers Cardiac Arrest on Stage

Starting with this: The latest update is that the drummer is recovering well.

From Smoothradio.com:

Sting support act issue update after drummer suffers cardiac arrest on stage​

The Christians were playing at On The Waterfront Liverpool when one of their performers was taken ill.

Sting's on The Waterfront support act The Christians have issued an update after their drummer suffered a cardiac arrest while performing on Sunday, June 22.

The band’s drummer Lionel Duke was taken ill in front of concert goers two songs into their set at the Liverpool festival.

Lead vocalist Gary Christian stopped the group’s performance and secured help for Lionel from the event’s medical team.

A privacy screen was set up while he received emergency treatment on the stage, before he was rushed to hospital by ambulance.


The Christians were the last act to go on stage at On The Waterfront ahead of Sting, whose appearance at the festival was a meaningful one as it marked his first performance in the city since 1979.

Despite the evening’s shock events, Sting did go on to perform at the festival, as The Christians gave the ‘Message in a Bottle’ singer their blessing that the show should continue.

Updating crowds on Lionel’s condition, Sting told the audience: “The drummer in the band before is okay. He’s in hospital.

“All of us are praying he’s going to be fine. Our thoughts are with him,” he added, and the singer and guitarist performed ‘Fragile’ as the night’s final song while asking fans again to think of the drummer.

The Christians issued an update on Lionel’s condition later on Sunday night, telling fans via Facebook that they were “awaiting news from the Heart and Chest hospital at Broad Green [sic]” about their bandmate.

The group thanked “the phenomenal team of medics present from the On The Waterfront Liverpool team who stepped in so swiftly to help” and asked fans to “please send positive vibes” Lionel’s way.

Followers responded by leaving more wishes of support for the stricken artist and his band in the comments of the post.

On June 25, The Christians updated fans with the news Lionel was "making good progress" and that they "hope to have further good news on his recovery" soon.

Thankyou so much to all the many many messages regarding our drummer Lionel Duke who suffered a cardiac arrest while...

Click to expand...

sting that evening.


~~~comment
"
A great concert by Sting and the band - especially after Lionel Duke the drummer with The Christians was taken ill with a cardiac arrest during their concert.Best wishes to Lionel and family for a speedy recovery.The Christians had got off to a cracking start and I hope to see them at another gig too.Good wishes to all the band members after the traumatic event."

Best wishes. Side note - Sting has the fountain of youth in his backyard.

yea well he can afford it..
Seems drummers around here are starting to fail too..
got news of two out of service
I'm preparing to step in when it's time.

I've had three cardiac arrests and sometimes wonder what would happen if I had one on stage. The other guys I play with have pretty good time so hopefully could keep up the 100BPM compressions required

On a positive note, I consider it a very good way to die - very quick and relatively painless, and you don't realise it's happening because you're unconscious.

Bewildered Beast said:

I've had three cardiac arrests and sometimes wonder what would happen if I had one on stage. The other guys I play with have pretty good time so hopefully could keep up the 100BPM compressions required

On a positive note, I consider it a very good way to die - very quick and relatively painless, and you don't realise it's happening because you're unconscious.

Click to expand...

My dad (a pianist) suffered a heart attack on stage, he finished his set, albeit sitting down, not dancing behind his keyboard as per usual. He then drove back home and did the whole christmas party but went to bed early, wich was very much out of character for him. Next morning he looked awful so we drove him to the hospital where they rushed him to get 6 by-passes. He unfortunately went in his sleep about 2 weeks later.

If it weren't for the shock it would most assuredly cause my colleagues, I wouldn't mind just kicking the bucket on stage: quite the way to go for a musician. Way better than suffering through years and years of some kind of debilitating ailment...

DamnSingerAlsoDrums said:

My dad (a pianist) suffered a heart attack on stage, he finished his set, albeit sitting down, not dancing behind his keyboard as per usual. He then drove back home and did the whole christmas party but went to bed early, wich was very much out of character for him. Next morning he looked awful so we drove him to the hospital where they rushed him to get 6 by-passes. He unfortunately went in his sleep about 2 weeks later.

If it weren't for the shock it would most assuredly cause my colleagues, I wouldn't mind just kicking the bucket on stage: quite the way to go for a musician. Way better than suffering through years and years of some kind of debilitating ailment...

Click to expand...

Sorry to hear about your Dad.

My younger brother survived a heart attack just after he'd run a marathon. Fortunately his friends knew immediately what was happening and rushed him to the ER. He's fine now.

A J said:

Sorry to hear about your Dad.

My younger brother survived a heart attack just after he'd run a marathon. Fortunately his friends knew immediately what was happening and rushed him to the ER. He's fine now.

Click to expand...

Oh geez, lucky him, yeah. Sad to think it can happen despite great physical shape...

I had a heart attack a few years back and they symptoms didn't involve the classic sore left arm. I had a burning sensation in my chest, felt like I was getting strangled then fainted. I didn't think much about it, but remembered the same thing had happened, rather embarrassingly, on the train the week before. So I went off to A&E, got some blood taken, then got kept in for three weeks when the results came back.

Now the moral of this story, especially once you hit your 40s, is that we need to pay attention to all the little signs our body's giving us. As AJ pointed out, being able to run marathons is no guarantee the old ticker's anything less than top grade.

And the difference between the two is that a cardiac arrest is electrical, the heart stops beating, and heart attack is mechanical, the pipes going in are blocked.

Pleasant thoughts for a Saturday but, as Bob Mitchum said, you've got to die of something!

piston broke said:

And the difference between the two is that a cardiac arrest is electrical, the heart stops beating, and heart attack is mechanical, the pipes going in are blocked.

Click to expand...

Interesting difference, did not know this.

Statin drugs have kept people alive far longer than before as it prevents the heart attack. If you go back into the 1940's / 1950's signficantly larger portions of the population were gone in their 50s and such. That's an awfully short lifespan. :-(

But now we're living longer so we can develop even worse disease as we age. Not certain which is worse.

Solution? Do your best to stay fit, eat well and spend every waking second of free time to maximize drum time!

Happy to see this report of the drummer's "Miraculous recovery."

DamnSingerAlsoDrums said:

If it weren't for the shock it would most assuredly cause my colleagues, I wouldn't mind just kicking the bucket on stage: quite the way to go for a musician. Way better than suffering through years and years of some kind of debilitating ailment...

Click to expand...

This brought to mind Sib Hashian, who came up in conversation just last week with a friend. Sib used to play with a local-ish (like New England) band called Ernie and the Automatics (and some other group that was "Just another band out of Boston") - lots of folks up here in the frozen north knew him.

piston broke said:

And the difference between the two is that a cardiac arrest is electrical, the heart stops beating, and heart attack is mechanical, the pipes going in are blocked.

Click to expand...

Just to clarify this for people (disclaimer: I'm not a doctor), when the pipes get completely blocked, this can cause a cardiac arrest (heart stops beating), which is what happened in my case, and this is probably the most common cause for the heart stopping.

Only about 5% of people survive unless they're in the hospital at the time, so when you hear of someone recovering (the Danish football player, Erikson, who had one during the Euros a few years back springs to mind) it's very rare.