Thousands of fans watched in horror as sportsman died in the middle of a match

He was a basketball player set for greatness at the peak of his college career before a devastating health condition caused a collapse front of thousands of fans.

Eric Wilson 'Hank' Gathers was a 23-year-old American college basketball player when his thriving career was cut short in a moment nobody could have predicted.

He played for the Loyola Marymount Lions and was a renowned player who, in 1989, became the second player in NCAA Division I history to lead the nation in scoring and rebounding in the same season. It's safe to say the six-foot-seven sportsman was destined for great things.

Ahead of the semi-finals of the 1990 WCC tournament, which saw him play in his last ever game, Gathers had accounted for 28 of his team's 121 points and was on a high, ready to take on the opposition.

He told a reporter for Channel 2 in Los Angeles before the game: "I feel great. I'm in the best shape of my life. My mom's out here, and I'm looking forward to some good home cooking."

Although, when trotting back to take his position and turning to face Portland's inbound pass, he took two steps to the right and collapsed. He had no time to make effort to break the fall, and the sheer impact of a man of his size, at 220 pounds, hitting the floor, was loud.

The player struggled to regain a steady stance, remaining on his hands and knees before he was surrounded by medical professionals. Soon enough, he went back down to the floor and lost consciousness. He was carried out of the gym on a stretcher.

The game clock was stopped, with over 13 minutes of the first half remaining, and the team's physician began cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Decades later from the incident, NBA coach Erik Spoelstra is still shaken, and he shared the moment he saw Gathers fall. Spoelstra shared: "The absolute silence in the gym after he fell, it's something I'll never forget."

The crowd watching the huge game piled out of the arena one by one, with an eerie silence lingering, and at 6:55pm, Gathers was pronounced dead.

This wasn't the first time the talented player had collapsed, having been diagnosed in his senior year with an abnormal heartbeat, following his first collapse midgame.

Following this seemingly 'blip' in his health, he missed two games and was put on medication by his doctors. Gathers made a return to the sport within a few weeks and gradually decreased his dosage until he had appeared recovered.

The collapse that eventually killed him was the second to take place in that very same season, but it was twice too many.

Moments after his fatal collapse, the WCC commissioner suspended the game indefinitely, but ESPN maintained and aired the graphic footage of his final moments on the court.

Spoelstra, then a player for the University of Portland, remembered his competitor as an "unbelievable physical specimen".

He told the Los Angeles Times: "We were practising in the gym one time before we played LMU, and you could look out one side and see the track. There was Hank, running as hard as he could, wearing a parachute. Talk about intimidating. We were all thinking, ‘Boy, we’ve got to play that guy. ’"