Buccaneers’ Bruce Arians hospitalized over health scare in October
Bruce Arians has revealed he experienced a worrisome health scare before the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the Atlanta Falcons on Oct. 9.
“On the night before the Atlanta game, we had a house full of people,” Arians recently told Ira Kaufman of the Joe Bucs Fan website. “We ate and I got these pains way up here, like two knives going in. The more I tried to take a breath, the worse it got.
“I took some TUMS, thinking it was indigestion, but it just got worse. I called (wife) Christine back to the bedroom and said I can’t shake this pain. We called 911 and they put me on a stretcher to Tampa General.”
Arians, who turned 70 years old on Oct. 3, was ultimately diagnosed with myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle sometimes linked with cardiac arrest.
“Thankfully, the scans showed no fluid, no heart damage and absolutely no blockages,” Arians continued during his comments. “They had a cardiac radiologist look at everything and they ended up giving me anti-inflammatories.”
In all, Arians was hospitalized for four days and missed Tampa Bay’s defeats at the Pittsburgh Steelers on Oct. 16 and at the Carolina Panthers on Oct. 23. His first contest back was the home loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Oct. 27, but he didn’t travel to Germany for this past Sunday’s showdown with the Seattle Seahawks.
Following Tampa Bay’s three-game losing streak, the Buccaneers have won back-to-back matchups and enter their bye week at 5-5.
As Mike Florio noted for Pro Football Talk, Arians was serving as head coach of the Arizona Cardinals when he was temporarily hospitalized with chest pain in the fall of 2016. Kaufman explained that Arians was released the next day.
As head coach, Arians famously guided the Buccaneers to a Super Bowl LV victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in February 2021. He stepped down from that role this past March and has since worked as a senior advisor to general manager Jason Licht.
The Buccaneers next play at the Cleveland Browns (3-6) on Nov. 27.
