Cherepanov

MOSCOW — A Russian lawmaker said today that rising hockey star Alexei Cherepanov, a first-round draft pick of the New York Rangers, may have died due to negligence on the part of paramedics who responded to an emergency call.

Cherepanov, 19, died Monday during a Continental Hockey League game outside of Moscow.

Russian investigators said Cherepanov suffered from chronic ischemia, a medical condition in which not enough blood gets to the heart or other organs.

Pavel Krasheninnikov, who sits on the Russian Hockey Federation's supervisory council and is a member of the State Duma, said there was no ambulance on duty at the arena where Cherepanov's Russian team, Avangard Omsk, was playing.

He asserted that emergency workers took too long to respond and didn't have a defibrillator, a machine used to shock the heart. It was unclear how much time it took paramedics to respond.

"There are elements of negligence here," Krasheninnikov said in televised comments.

Moscow regional investigator Yulia Zhukova said officials would look into why Cherepanov was playing with ischemia, and said officials could open a criminal investigation.

Former Rangers captain Jaromir Jagr played a shift with Cherepanov and was talking to him on the bench shortly after they left the ice, when Cherepanov suddenly collapsed, said a Rangers spokesman who talked to Jagr.

There was no collision that preceded the collapse, the spokesman said, but few other details were available. Cherepanov scored the first goal of the game and had eight in 15 contests this season, his third with Avangard Omsk.