Jiri Fischer remembers lying in a hospital bed, recovering from cardiac arrest, thinking about some stitches near his eye.

Fischer collapsed on the bench while playing for the Detroit Red Wings on Nov. 21, 2005. In a way, he was lucky. He was at home. The team physician, who was also an emergency-room physician, had a seat behind the bench and had an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) nearby because he knew Fischer had a heart condition. He reached Fischer in seconds and saved his life.

A few nights earlier, the Wings were on the road. Fischer took what he called a “routine stick in the eye, no big deal.” He had to wait until the end of the period to get stitched up, because the doctor was sitting in a suite near the rafters and had to walk all the way downstairs.

View photos The Wings had an ER doctor on hand when Jiri Fischer went into cardiac arrest in 2005. (Getty) More

What if Fischer had heart trouble then? Would someone else have saved him – the trainers, paramedics? You’d like to think so. Still ...

“It would have been a whole different scenario for me going into cardiac arrest in another building besides Joe Louis Arena back then,” Fischer said.

The NHL strengthened its emergency medical standards after the Fischer incident. Each team needed two doctors near the benches at each home game, and at least one needed current training in hockey-specific trauma management or Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS). Each team needed one AED at the home bench and another on an ambulance dedicated to the players.

Now, after the Rich Peverley incident last season, the NHL has strengthened its standards further. Each team needs three doctors near the benches at each home game – an orthopedist, a primary care physician and an ER physician – and at least one, if not all, must have current training in ATLS and Advanced Cardiac Life Support.

If and when there is another life-threatening emergency – a cardiac incident, a severe laceration, an obstructed airway – there will be an extra layer of expertise and experience to aid in the response.

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Nine years ago, it was rare for an ER physician to staff an NHL game, and it was rare for any team physician to have seats behind the bench. Those seats generate lots of hockey-related revenue.

Red Wings physician Tony Colucci happened to be an ER physician by day. He happened to have a seat behind the bench because he inherited it from his predecessor, longtime Wings physician John Finley.

Doctors knew Fischer had a heart abnormality, but they weren’t sure exactly what it was. Colucci put the AED near the Wings bench as a precaution.

Fischer, then a 25-year-old defenseman, had finished a shift against the Nashville Predators when he collapsed on the bench. He had suffered ventricular fibrillation, his heart beating rapidly and failing to pump blood through his body.

Colucci jumped down and did what he does all the time. He did chest compressions and defibrillated Fischer right then and there.

View photos Dr. Tony Colucci was behind the Wings bench and got to Fischer within 20 seconds. (Getty) More

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