The headlines may have said "heart attack," but the article indicates that it was a cardiac arrest. A heart attack may lead to cardiac arrest, but not all cardiac arrests are the result of heart attacks.

The most common direct cause of cardiac arrest is a breakdown of the heart's electrical system. If the heart's natural pacemaker malfunctions, or if the orderly conduction of signals throughout the heart is disrupted, the regular, coordinated pumping action can be replaced by disorganized muscle contractions (ventricular fibrillation). Blood flow throughout the body stops, and death is inevitable unless the heart's normal beat can be restarted.

Over 80% of cardiac arrests are the result of coronary artery disease, which can reduce blood flow to the heart and impair electrical conduction even without causing the usual symptoms of a heart attack. Other possible causes include an enlarged heart, disease involving the heart valves, congenital heart disease, and abnormalities in the electrical system itself. The use of certain drugs can affect the heart's electrical system and increase the risk of sudden cardiac arrest. Finally, in some cases of cardiac arrest, the cause is never found. (There are still other causes, such as electrocution and sudden immersion in cold water, which can be ignored in this particular case.)

The only way to find out why Dani Jarque's heart, or anyone else's, stopped suddenly is to perform a thorough autopsy, and even then the question might remain unanswered. It would take extensive (and expensive) testing to identify many of the possible causes beforehand, and some at-risk individuals would still remain undiagnosed.
Source(s):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/european/5996586/Espanyol-captain...
http://www.mayoclinic.com/print/sudden-cardiac-arrest/DS00764/METHOD=print&...

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