This week, Dominican basketball player Óscar Cabrera Adames tragically passed away from what appears to have been a heart attack while doing a stress test at a health center in Santo Domingo.
It is speculated that he suffered from myocarditis, a rare condition that weakens the heart and its electrical system, making it unable to pump blood efficiently, as reported by the American Heart Association.
On social media, Cabrera Adames has mentioned that he believes he developed this condition after receiving two doses of the COVID vaccine, as it was a requirement to work. He shared that he suffered a sudden collapse during a match of the 2021 Spanish Amateur Basketball League and underwent 11 different cardiology tests, all of which showed nothing.
The purpose of a stress test, as outlined by the Mayo Clinic, is to assess the heart’s performance during physical activity. To perform the test, electrodes are attached to the patient’s chest to measure the heart’s electrical activity. It remains unclear if the stress test was the direct cause of the heart attack.
Cabrera Adames was the nephew of Hugo Cabrera, a Dominican Sports Hall of Famer, and had attended Daytona State College in Florida. In 2016, he was one of 12 men arrested for attempting to have sex with a minor following an undercover sting by St. Johns County Sheriff’s deputies.