It was supposed to be the biggest game of Week 17 and a possible preview of a future Playoff game. Bills quarterback Josh Allen and Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow had never met in an NFL game before this highly hyped Monday Night Football game.
But just before the end of the first quarter, Bills defensive back Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field following a hard tackle on Bengals receiver Tee Higgins. Hamlin stood up after the tackle and immediately collapsed.
Fortunately, medical personnel rushed out on the field, discovered Hamlin wasn’t breathing, and performed CPR on him for 10 minutes. They also used a defibrillator to get a pulse.
While the medics worked on Hamlin, both Bill players and Bengal players gathered and shared grief over their fallen comrade. Bills Head Coach drew his team together for a pray for Hamlin as the ambulance took Hamlin to the hospital.
We all knew football was a violent sport. This shocking incident just proved it in front of 70,000 fans at the stadium and millions of viewers on TV.
Have you ever heard the sort of shocked silence that descended on that stadium when it quickly became obvious that Hamlin’s injury wasn’t a run-of-the-mill hard knock? A scary reminder that even an athlete in great condition is still a mortal being. I can’t even imagine how bad Higgins must be feeling right now—to have been a contributing cause, no matter how inadvertent, to Hamlin’s collapse.
After the powers-that-be made the very wise decision to postpone the game, stories started cropping up on my news feeds about previous grave medical conditions and traumatic injuries (even deaths) that have happened to athletes on the field of play. Many of them obviously involved race car driving or extreme sports (BASE jumping, etc.), but there were cases from football, basketball, baseball (including an umpire’s death from a heart attack), and at least two cases of hockey players having arteries severed by opponents’ skates. No matter the safety protocols or care taken, severe injuries are always a risk in sports.
Deb, that shocked silence that descended on Paycor Stadium came with the realization that Hamlin may have died in front of their eyes. He had no pulse and was lifeless for about 10 minutes before the CPR and the defibrillator got his heart started again.
Sad. My heart goes out to him, his family and friends, both teams, and the fans. Sports can be dangerous, whether in the moment or down the line with the effects of long-lasting head injuries.
Jerry, the suddenness and severity of Damar Hamlin’s injury jolted all the players on the field who realized a team mate was near death.
Since I pay virtually no attention to the NFL until the playoffs start I didn’t know about this until late Monday night, and I’m certainly glad I didn’t see it. I feel terrible that a game I generally support is responsible for it. Based on interviews of doctors and other medical professionals by the news people, this appears to have been a really freaky occurrence where X happened at exactly the same time as Y, where X is the hit and Y is what, exactly, Hamlin’s heart was doing at that exact instant. So there’s probably no equipment or rule change that could have prevented it. But that’s no excuse, NFL. Do more. Do better.
Michael, apparently the diagnosis of commotio cordis, which refers to a fatal disruption of the heart rhythm from a blow to the chest, also happens in baseball and lacrosse. Perhaps a kevlar vest could shield the heart from such hits.
…and less than an hour later, fringe groups were blaming it on anti-covid vaccines.
Dan, some things never change.
The NFL so-called “concussion protocol” has been woefully inadequate for years. How many retired players die early with some kind of brain problem caused by too many hits to the head? I doubt we’ll ever know the real number. As to what Deb said, every once in a while we get a story about a high school player dying after a strenuous practice in too hot conditions, as a baseball player hit by a line drive. Football is a very violent sport and anyone who doesn’t see it just isn’t paying attention.
And then there are the survivors, who end up paralyzed in a wheelchair for the rest of their lives, like Marc Buoniconti or Darryl Stingley. After this happened, we had Eric LeGrand, a former Rutgers football player paralyzed in an on-field tackle, who has made a huge difference in people’s lives since his injury.
Jeff, too many times the impact of sports injuries gets swept under the rug. But in front of a stadium full of fans and with millions watching on TV, the type of collapse Hamilin had, where his body went completely limp, is the type of collapse that has a very, very high likelihood of the heart stopping. Instantly, everyone knew Hamlin was near death.
Eileen Dreyer (former ER Nurse) posted a couple of very good comments on what happened. Sadly, this is a risk most players have to contend with. I’m praying for both players.
Not to mention vascular dementia, which a friend had after playing in high school, college and the Marines.
Patti, my brother is a physical therapist specializing in sports injuries. He told me, “If someone plays contact sports, there’s a 100% probability they will get injured.” I’ve experienced injury playing a non-contact sport–tennis–in High School. Years later when I went to an orthopedic surgeon to seek relief from knee pain, he took my medical history. When we got to my playing tennis, he asked me, “What kind of surface did you play on in High School.” “Asphalt,” I answered. “That’s what started the degeneration of your knees. You should have played on grass.” After cortisone shots, Synvisc shots, and years of physical therapy, I ended up getting two total knee replacements. Needless to say, I stopped playing tennis.
One thing that helped Hamlin was that the NFL has doctors right there on the sidelines. I really don’t know about other sports. Baseball has trainers who can perform first aid, but I don’t know how quickly they can get a doctor on field. There’s medical staff of some sort in the stadiums for fans, so are they also on call for players? I don’t know, and I have no idea what basketball, hockey, et al., have in place.
Jeff, you’re right about the NFL having medical resources:30 healthcare providers on average are at a stadium on game day with the purpose of providing “immediate care” to players. The NFL estimates that each team employs four athletic trainers, two primary care physicians, two orthopedists, one chiropractor and one independent neurotrauma consultant.
In addition, each stadium deploys two independent athletic trainers, one visiting team medical liaison, one airway management physician, one radiology technician, two paramedics/EMTs, one unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant, one dentist and one ophthalmologist. And one ambulance.
“Let me tell you what you didn’t see on TV:
* Not one Bills fan or one Bengals fan left their seat.
* The entire stadium was almost silent.
* The entire Bills team was around the ambulance.
* The entire Bengals team was down on one knee.
* Many in my section (Bills fans and Bengals fans) broke out in prayer.
* I sat and cried with a Bengals fan hugging each other so tight.
* The teenage Bengals fan in front of me ran to get me more tissues and made sure I didn’t need anything else.
* I saw grown men crying and strangers linking arms.
* So many Bengals fans circled around all the Bills fans offering support.
* The shocked look of every single fan showed the devastation.
* The walk out of the stadium was very somber, eerily quiet and honestly just sad.
This is bigger than football. Something so critical bringing fans of both sides together. Tonight, we were one team. One team praying for Hamlin.”
from Eileen Dreyer, a former er nurse
So many of us saw Damar Hamlin fall last night. And so many people wanted to know so many things regarding his treatment. And there’ve been a LOT of posts with suppositions and partial information from non-medical people. I thought I might as well offer this old ER nurse’s take on what happened, just from the timeline. This is my wheelhouse(as in, you can ask about this, not so much long-term care).
Here’s my take. He went down, bystanders started CPR. I hope they got the AED right away and shocked him back into a rhythm. If not that’s where the ambulance came in. So he has a rhythm, but that’s just electricity, not the pumping ability which is the most vital part(which is why they kept doing CPR if they couldn’t get a pulse),. They get him into the ambulance with paramedics who right there can intubate, breathe for him, start IVs and get drugs in him to a)help the heart work effectively and bring up blood pressure, and b)prevent more arrhythmias, which would ruin all their good work. There are definitely times when responders scoop and run. But no matter how close that hospital was, the ambulance wasn’t going to be able to scream out of there. Because we have professionals who can do basically what they do in the ER right there, why waste any time at all? Remember, life support involves the ABCs. Airway, Breathing, Circulation. They HAD to get that ET tube in right away so they could push oxygen into him, and they had to make the heart pump as effectively as they could so the oxygen could circulate as best as best it could. He had already been down a few minutes, and every minute counts. They couldn’t even wait that two minutes to the ER. They gave him the best chance he has.
What I’m hoping now is that they put him in a medically-induced coma to decrease the need for oxygen, lessen the load on all the organs and give the body a chance to reset as it battled the shock of what happened. Remember, it isn’t just the heart and lungs and brain that are traumatized. Kidneys are particularly cranky when the body goes haywire. Once they do that, they have time to evaluate everything else. The good news is that I truly believe prayers help, and he got a ton of them. The better news is that the hospital they took him to is one of the premiere Level 1 Trauma Centers in the country. They were ready for him. #DamarHamlin #CPR One more thing. It shouldn’t just be medical personnel who know CPR. It should be every person, because as we saw last night, cardiac arrest can happen at any moment to any person. Check with the Red Cross. Check on line. Heck, check with your local fire station. Who knows? You may be the first person on the scene. Don’t waste a moment by not knowing what to do.
PPS: No, dammit. It was not the vaccine.
Maggie, thanks for sharing Eileen Dryer’s analysis of Damar Hamlin’s situation. But do we really need to play NFL games near Premier Level 1 Trauma Centers to insure player safety?
I had read about the incident, and was very concerned, but I am glad I read your post and the comments, to put it into perspective.
Tracy, reports from the University of Cincinnati Trauma Center continue to trend towards improvement in Damar Hamilin’s condition…but he has a long way to go.
I was thinking about you the other night when all this was unfolding. Such an awful thing to have happen and certainly the most awful thing I’ve ever “witnessed” (mostly heard, of course, since mercifully they weren’t showing CPR on air) in an NFL game. I’m happy that reports are that things are moving in the right direction and pray that continues.
Carl, watching someone collapse and suffer cardiac arrest with no pulse makes for a chilling scene on national TV. Fortunately, the NFL had a medical staff trained for these kinds of unexpected injuries.
Yes, it is very fortunate that, in today’s world, they have the medical personnel, etc. needed on site. I’m sure it wouldn’t have been a positive outcome back in the early NFL days.
While it pales in comparison to a person’s life, I am curious to see how this will all play out with Buffalo, Cincy, and the Chiefs all in contention for that top spot and this game having such meaning for the season.
Carl, I’m sure some players will be suffering from PTSD as a consequence of the Damar Hamlin catastrophe. We’ll see how things shake out this weekend. Today’s medical report says Hamlin is conscious.
What do you think about the decision that was made to not play the game and the proposals that are out there right now for how to manage the playoffs?
Carl, there is no time to replay the Bills vs. Bengals game unless the Playoffs were going to delayed a week. The owners were not going to let that happen. The various scenarios basically only affect Buffalo, KC, and Cincinnati. All the rest of the NFL teams are not involved.