LONDON (Reuters Life!) — Many of Europe's top soccer stadiums haven't got the equipment or trained staff to save the lives of spectators who suffer heart attacks, researchers said.

New research published online in the European Heart Journal said that more than a quarter of the 187 top sports arenas that were studied in 10 European countries did not have automated external defibrillators on site, action plans or training in place to help fans who had heart attacks.

Study author Mats Borjesson is chairman of the sports cardiology section of the European Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation (EACPR) and also a club doctor at elite level for both the Swedish premier division football team GAIS and the Swedish national women's football team.

"Our study shows that many of these sports arenas are not adequately prepared to deal effectively with heart attacks among the spectators," Borjesson said in a statement. "We believe that formal recommendations are needed urgently to improve safety for spectators and players."

Other authors of the study are also club doctors: Luis Serratosa for Real Madrid, Antonio Pelliccia for the Italian Olympic team, Klaus-Peter Mellwig for the German national handball team.

During the period that was studied, the 2005-6 season, no players or officials suffered heart attacks, but there were 77 heart attacks among the spectators (an estimated incidence of about one in 589,000 spectators).

The researchers distributed a 12-question survey via members of the EACPR sports cardiology section who were from the 10 countries participating in the study. The survey asked about the average numbers of spectators in the club arenas during one full season, the existence of written medical action plans, the number of emergency personnel present, the availability of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in the arena, the average distance in time and kilometres to the nearest hospital, the level of training of emergency staff and training programmes offered to them, and the number of heart attacks registered during the season.