LOS ANGELES (AP) – It’s nothing short of a miracle that Savvy King not only survived a life-threatening heart attack on the field, but is poised to return to the City of Angels this season, and she knows it.
During the second half of Angel City’s home game against the Utah Royals on May 9 of last year, King sat on the field in the 74th minute, looking stunned. Then everything went black.
The 20-year-old boy’s heart had stopped.
A trainer rushed to King’s side and performed CPR. Fans and fellow players were upset when she was treated on the field for about 11 minutes. before she rushes away. When you arrive at the hospital, Mr. King underwent surgery. The procedure is to repair an abnormal left coronary artery, a rare and previously undetected congenital defect.
Ten months later, Dr. King is preparing for his next move. National Women’s Soccer League season.
“There have definitely been some ups and downs, but for the most part I’m just grateful to be able to play again,” she said. “I feel like it comes from a complete change in my outlook on life. Sometimes when you do something over and over again, you become comfortable, not necessarily satisfied, but you take for granted that you can go out and do what you love every day. And for a moment, I thought that was taken away from me.”
Controversy arose while Dr. King was hospitalized. The NWSL Players Association was among the groups that argued the Angel City game should have been suspended after King’s collapse. Instead, the match continued with approximately 12 minutes of stoppage time.
The league later said: the match should have been stopped.
Another player, Savannah DeMello of Racing Louisville, said: fell down during the match There was a game against the Reign in Seattle later in the season, and the remainder of that game was postponed. NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman said the league said: What I learned from those experiences And new procedures have been put in place to determine the best course of action should such an incident occur.
Long recovery and new mission
King spent the summer at home watching his teammates on TV, relearning what once came naturally to him.
She underwent six weeks of physical therapy to get back on her feet and then began the process of cardiac rehabilitation. She exercised three days a week for three months while doctors closely monitored her heart. By September, she was able to do limited training with the team.
As she walked home, she made a plan.
Under King’s leadership, all 16 NWSL teams this year trained players, coaches and staff in hands-only CPR and the use of automated external defibrillators (AEDs). NWSL is the only professional sports league in the nation to offer CPR training on this scale.
Through his foundation, Savy King of Hearts, King hopes to spread the message that “all you need is two hands to be a hero.” Her partner in this effort, the American Heart Association, says manual CPR can double or even triple the chance of survival.
“All the credit goes to Savi. She’s amazing,” Berman said. “She sent me a note as soon as she finished a major stage of her recovery and came to us with this idea, and it was obviously a no-brainer for us to support it. It was a great opportunity for her, for her teammates, for the league to turn something really scary into a positive.”
Her foundation delivers AEDs to areas that don’t have them and hosts soccer camps that include CPR training for children and their parents.
comeback kid
King’s mother, Carrie King, a Southern California native, was a professional biathlete. King himself ran track and field in high school before playing one season at the University of North Carolina under coach Anson Dorrance.
She was selected second overall by Expansion Bay FC in the 2024 NWSL Draft and played 18 games for the club. She was traded to Angel City in February 2025 and started all eight games for the team before going down.
She also participated in several US Soccer Youth National Teams and was invited to senior team coach Emma Hayes’ Futures Camp in January 2025.
On Valentine’s Day of this year, she was taken off Angel City’s season-ending injured list and appeared in two preseason games for the Los Angeles-based team. Angel City opens the regular season at home against the Chicago Stars on Sunday.
Dr. King said she has no restrictions and does not require special monitoring or testing. She has no qualms about continuing her playing career.
“The things that happen to me don’t necessarily have to define me and determine how I go about my life going forward, because I could easily stop playing and think, ‘Oh, this is scary. Let’s quit.’ But there’s so much I want to accomplish in life, and I didn’t want that to be the reason I quit completely, especially if there’s a chance I’ll continue to move forward and continue to inspire young girls going through the same things.”
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