The 29-year-old Amer­i­can report­ed­ly suf­fered a bro­ken neck in the sec­ond peri­od of the game.

The hock­ey play­er, being with the puck on the left side of the ice in the oppo­nen­t’s zone, col­lides with an oppo­nent — and the Sheffield for­ward acci­den­tal­ly touch­es Adamp’s neck. Both end up on the ice. Adam, despite his attempts, can­not stay on his feet and falls again. The ref­er­ee assists the hock­ey play­er in restor­ing his posi­tion… This is a spec­ta­cle for those not faint of heart.

The match was aban­doned as John­son received med­ical atten­tion on the ice.

A few min­utes lat­er, Sheffield asked fans — about 8,000 of them attend­ed the match — to leave the are­na “due to a seri­ous med­ical emer­gency”.

“It was ter­ri­ble to see. Peo­ple were cry­ing and los­ing con­scious­ness,” one wit­ness report­ed.

A par­ent of one of the chil­dren at the match wrote: “My 17 year old son came home com­plete­ly bro­ken and said he could­n’t unsee what he saw tonight. He was as white as a sheet of paper. My thoughts and prayers are with the teams.”

John­son was tak­en to Sheffield North Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal but could not be saved.

Not­ting­ham Pan­thers are dev­as­tat­ed as Adam John­son trag­i­cal­ly passed away fol­low­ing a hor­rif­ic acci­dent at a match in Sheffield last night. The club will miss him great­ly and will nev­er for­get him.

Adam, our num­ber 47, was not only an out­stand­ing hock­ey play­er, but also a great team­mate and an incred­i­ble per­son who had his whole life ahead of him. The Pan­thers would like to express our con­do­lences to Adam’s fam­i­ly, his girl­friend and all his friends at this extreme­ly dif­fi­cult time, our thoughts are with you.

“Every­one at the club, includ­ing play­ers, staff, man­age­ment and own­ers, is heart­bro­ken to hear of Adam’s pass­ing,” the team state­ment read.

“The thoughts and con­do­lences of every­one asso­ci­at­ed with the league go out to Adam’s fam­i­ly, friends and team­mates at this incred­i­bly sad time,” the EIHL said.