Commotio cordis occurs when a blunt blow to the chest during a specific moment in the heart’s electrical cycle results in sudden cardiac arrest.

Commotio cordis is effectively a cardiac arrest that’s caused by a blunt blow to the chest. The sudden trauma disrupts the normal electrical signaling of the heart, causing the heart’s ...

“It has to be at a specific instant during that normal cardiac cycle where the electrical system is disrupted and then the heart goes into this abnormal electrical cycle,” Stauffer said ...