Monday, January 03, 2022
Diagnosis during ice hockey game
The viewer becomes a lifesaver for the kit manager
Actually, medical student Nadia Popovici only wants to watch an ice hockey game in Vancouver. But then she notices a suspicious mole on the neck of a kit attendant. The 22-year-old makes the man aware of her discovery – and probably saves his life.
With a suspected life-saving diagnosis on the sidelines, a young medical student has won over an entire Canadian ice hockey club and its fans. Brian “Red” Hamilton, one of the equipment supervisors of the first division ice hockey team Vancouver Canucks, was looking for his savior with a letter that the club distributed on Saturday via Twitter.
“To the woman I’m trying to find, you’ve changed my life and now I want to find you to say thank you so much,” wrote Hamilton. The woman was one of the spectators of the Seattle Kraken game against the Vancouver Canucks on October 23. In doing so, she discovered a suspicious mole on the neck of the attendant standing in front of her and tried desperately to get his attention.
Finally she wrote a message on her cell phone. She held the cell phone screen up to the pane separating the Canucks’ bench viewers for Hamilton to read. “The mole on the back of your neck may be cancer. Please see a doctor!”
Hamilton’s letter to his unknown savior spread quickly and within an hour she was located. It was Nadia Popovici, 22, who was recently admitted to medical school. Hamilton was overjoyed at a press conference. “The only reason I wrote the letter was because I really wanted her to know that her persistence and everything she did was taken seriously.”
Teams support Popovici’s studies
Hamilton himself had never noticed the dangerous mole. During the examination, however, it turned out to be malignant melanoma, also known as black skin cancer. The doctors removed the malignant tumor.
Hamilton therefore celebrated Popovici as a “heroine”. She is an “incredible person who took the time to notice something worrying and then find a way to draw attention to it during the chaos of an ice hockey game”.
On Saturday evening (local time), Popovici and Hamilton met in person for another game between the Canucks and the Kraken in Seattle. Popovici told Hamilton, “What an incredible way to start my path into medical school! This is invaluable.” For Hamilton she was so happy “that you had it examined”.
During the game, when Popovici wore an octopus shirt, both teams announced that they would support Popovici’s medical studies with $ 10,000, around 8,789 euros.