Last week, Penguins President of Hockey Operations and GM Kyle Dubas had provided more detail about the vasovagal episode Kindel experienced, which caused him to collapse about 10 minutes into the flight.
According to the Mayo Clinic, they occur when you faint because your body overreacts to certain triggers. Your heart rate and blood pressure drop suddenly, which leads to reduced blood flow to your brain, causing you to briefly lose consciousness.
Kindel was given oxygen on the flight, regained consciousness, and it was determined that the plane needed to land back in Salt Lake City.
“Just really grateful for the Penguins staff, doctors, trainers, everybody, who were so good, as well as the flight crew,” Kindel said. “Just really grateful for that, and they handled it with really good professionalism, and everything worked out good.”
After being taken to the University of Utah Hospital, Kindel was cleared to fly back to Pittsburgh on Wednesday. He was back in the building on Thursday, and was able to resume off-ice workouts a couple of days after getting back.
"I've seen him around the rink here prior to being on the ice. So, it's been awesome to have him around, and good to see that things are going well," Sidney Crosby said.
Today was Kindel’s first day back on the ice, and he stayed out for the entire hour-plus session, centering a line with Evgeni Malkin and Egor Chinakhov.
“I'm grateful for my teammates as well. They made it so easy just to come back and make it normal,” Kindel said. “This is what we love to do, go out and play hockey. Just so awesome to be back on the ice.”
For Kindel, it’s important for him to leave what happened in the past, and shift his focus ahead.
“Can't control what happened. Just got to move forward, and that's where my head's at,” Kindel said. “Just looking to move forward now. So, I'm definitely not dwelling on anything or have anything holding me back coming into this weekend.”
