Luton captain Tom Lockyer show heart op scars and explains how defibrillator works in video

Luton Town captain Tom Lockyer has revealed the scar he bears from the defibrillator device which he has had fitted to keep his heart beating normally.

The 29-year-old footballer suffered a cardiac arrest during the Hatters' Premier League fixture away at Bournemouth on 16 December.

In a video posted on the Sky Sports Premier League account on X, formerly Twitter, Lockyer can be seen pointing to the implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) which protrudes from his skin, while giving a commentary on how the system works.

Scars around 10-15cm in length can be seen on his chest where surgeons fitted the device and fed wires up to his heart.

He explains how the defibrillator will give him "a shock" if his heart-rate goes outside of the normal parameters again.

He said: "Hopefully I'm never going to need it but it's there as a precaution."

The batteries for the device are expected to last for 10 years before they need changing, he said.

The incident in December was the second time that the Wales international had collapsed on the pitch, after he endured a similar episode in May 2023 at Wembley during Luton's Championship Play-Off Final match against Coventry City.

As a guest of Sky Sports at the weekend when Lockyer's team took on Manchester United at Kenilworth Road, the defender spoke about the most recent incident publicly for the first time, saying: "I was running up to the half-way line and felt really light-headed.

"I remember thinking, 'I'll be okay in a second', but eventually I wasn't and I woke up and the paramedics and everyone was everywhere.

"It was well-documented that it happened in May, but I knew this was different."

Lockyer revealed how long his heart stopped for, which was monitored after doctors fitted a device that records his heartbeat following his collapse in May.

"It was two minutes and 40 seconds I was out for and I needed a defibrillator to shock me back," he said.

"A massive thank-you to the paramedics, club doctors, everyone involved that day because without them I wouldn't be standing here."

The video explaining how his defibrillator works had been viewed more than 1.6 million times on the Sky Sports Premier League account and liked by over 12,000 X users by Tuesday evening.

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