CPR saved Savy King’s life on a football field. In the season after her cardiac arrest, all 16 NWSL clubs have held hands-only CPR education sessions through a partnership between her Savy King of Hearts foundation, the league and the American Heart Association.
She’s done that while returning to competitive football and contributing to Angel City’s late-season recovery. When the club closed the regular season with a 4-1 win over Boston Legacy on November 1, King tested the goalkeeper in the third minute.
That career stopped abruptly on May 9, 2025. King, then 20, collapsed in the 74th minute of Angel City’s home match against the Utah Royals at BMO Stadium. Head athletic trainer Hollie Walusz performed CPR as the medical team responded. King underwent open-heart surgery at Cedars-Sinai four days later.
Doctors had identified an anomalous left coronary artery, a congenital condition King hadn’t known she had. The artery’s opening was severely narrowed, restricting the blood reaching her heart. Dr. Richard W. Kim led the operation to restore blood flow through a new route into the affected artery.
The route back to football ran through six weeks of physical therapy at home and three months of cardiac rehabilitation. At Cedars-Sinai, she exercised under medical supervision three days a week, with monitors tracking her heart rate and rhythm. Returning to professional sport meant rebuilding her capacity to train while doctors assessed how her heart responded.
Savy King made her return to support her Angel City teammates 🫶 pic.twitter.com/dF2pd0UlSO
— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) June 8, 2025
Taking the response beyond the touchline
King used the NWSL Awards in November 2025 to recognize the responders who’d treated her and introduce the league initiative. It brought together her foundation and the American Heart Association to offer players, coaches and staff instruction in hands-only CPR and the use of automated external defibrillators, or AEDs. By June, the association confirmed that every club had hosted CPR sessions. Players representing all 16 teams also joined an ambassador program to carry the message into community events and campaigns.
“I am here today because people acted quickly and because lifesaving resources were available when I needed them most,” King said in the American Heart Association’s June announcement.
The work has taken her well outside soccer venues. At Fenway Park in June, King joined a panel at an event where 400 participants practiced hands-only CPR on the field after a Red Sox game. Her foundation had already included a CPR demonstration for athletes and families at its first soccer camp the previous December.
Equipment has become part of that effort too. The foundation says it partnered with Defibtech to donate two AEDs to Boston Public Schools in August, with King delivering them to the John D. O’Bryant School and joining a CPR demonstration with its girls’ soccer team. In September, a women’s US Open final watch party at Watch Me! Sports Bar included CPR education and AED donations to the bar and United City FC.
The foundation also advocates for access to heart screenings. Its ambitions extend from recognizing heart problems to making sure more people can respond when someone collapses, whether they’re at a stadium, a school or a neighborhood bar.
The NWSL also had to confront its own handling of King’s collapse. The match against Utah continued after she was taken away. Following criticism, including from the players’ association, the league acknowledged that it should have been stopped.
The league’s 2026 competition rules now require an immediate pause for a serious medical incident. When CPR or a defibrillator is used, the presumption is that the game will be postponed and rescheduled, canceled or, if at least 75 minutes have been played, declared final. The commissioner retains discretion to continue if “compelling circumstances exist.”
King’s own return came in stages. She started a preseason match against Portland on February 15, 2026, and played 30 minutes. A month later, she entered in the 63rd minute of Angel City’s 4-0 league-opening win over Chicago. A foot injury interrupted her season afterward, and by August she was building match fitness again.
In 2025, Savy King collapsed on the field due to a heart condition. Today, she makes her return to the pitch.
— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) March 16, 2026
Welcome back, Savy 👏 pic.twitter.com/GWQW2lzqM2
After returning, she supplied the pass for her teammate Sveindís Jónsdóttir to score in a 5-2 win over Boston. Angel City’s next assignment is a quarterfinal at Kansas City on November 7.
We spoke with King for Stadio United about the mission behind Savy King of Hearts. Watch our interview below.
She’s described playing again as reassurance for the people closest to her. In a March interview with Nike, King spoke about how hard it had been to know the effect of her collapse on her family, friends and teammates. Telling them she felt well could only do so much.
“Them seeing me play is the proof.”
