Cristopher Lencioni is awake and responding to stimuli. But he faces a lengthy rehabilitation and uncertain future after a heart attack on June 8 in Spokane, Wash.
Lencioni, 28, collapsed and went into cardiac arrest at a gym during a jiu-jitsu exercise while training for a now-cancelled fight at Bellator 298, his wife Marca Lencioni told MMA Fighting on Tuesday. Training partners told her paramedics reached him in five to six minutes and used a defibrillator at least twice before taking him to an area hospital.
A subsequent MRI revealed the Bellator veteran suffered brain damage as the result of the heart attack, she said. He was released from the ICU this past Friday, she said, in state of disordered consciousness, which often results from traumatic brain injury.
Doctors continue to search for signs he is returning to normal. During a visit on Tuesday, the fighter nicknamed “Sunshine” smiled and took his hand out of a bag of ice.
“The neurologists were basically like, ‘We have to wait to see what he can do and what he shows us,’” Marca Lencioni said. “Because he was so, so healthy when this happened and is young and an athlete, they’re not really sure what’s gonna happen.
“The brain is complex, and because of where he’s at, they don’t know and they can’t say. Even the neurologist, she’s like, ‘I can’t give you a definite answer, because it’s gonna be up to him.’ If anybody can come out of something like this, it’s him. He’s a fighter in all senses – it’s not just in the ring.”
As outwardly healthy as Lencioni appeared, she said doctors believe the attack may have been caused by Long QT syndrome, a potentially deadly heart rhythm disorder that allegedly wasn’t flagged in a routine EKG in 2019.
“The bottom two chambers [of his heart] weren’t pumping correctly, and his [heart rhythm] was really high,” she said.
In 2013, former UFC heavyweight Shane Del Rosario died from complications of Long QT two weeks after suffering a heart attack. Recreational drugs were also found to have contributed to his death, though they were not the cause.
Marca Lencioni said her husband had no drugs his system and was healthy at the time of his heart attack.
Despite being under heavy sedation, the Bellator fighter has tried to stand up under his own power in the hospital. At one point, he had to be restrained for safety purposes, she said.
“Ten percent of people survive this, and the fact that he is moving, and trying to get up and like doing what he’s been doing…he drank water today for the first time,” she said. “It’s blowing [the nurses’] minds, and it’s blowing my mind.”
Now that he is out of the ICU, however, doctors want to transfer the uninsured Lencioni to a long-term care facility in Idaho as he continues to recover, she said. But his prognosis for improvement – and the cost of American medical care – has led her to ask the MMA community for help. A GoFundMe on the fighter’s behalf has so far raised almost $29,000 of its $250,000 goal.
That may be a drop in the bucket for the ultimate cost. Three weeks into his hospitalization, she said his medical bills totaled well over $300,000, a figure that left her briefly speechless during her interview.
“I’m hoping that he’ll be able to get state insurance that will help cover some of the bills here,” she said. “I’m ready to sell my house if I have to, to get him treatment in another country.”
Marca Lencioni praised the ICU doctors that initially cared for her husband. But she believes she needs alternate therapies to assist in his recovery. She hopes he can receive stem cell therapy in Mexico or Columbia. (Stem cell therapy is considered an unproven therapy for many of the conditions it purports to treat by U.S. medical regulators.)
Throughout the process, she said Bellator officials have been “amazing” and “very supportive,” offering assistance to the ailing fighter.
As to whether “Sunshine” will ever fight again, she doesn’t rule out anything.
“If anybody can come out of something like this, it would be him,” she said. “So I’m not gonna put limitations on what it is possible for him to do or not to do because he’s been proving the doctor’s wrong every single day since this has happened.”
