Tackling and Cardiac Arrest: The Story of Damar Hamlin, the NFL Player Who Shocked the World

Give and take blows. Those who choose the position of football security know they are buying a ticket for a high-risk journey. Damar Hamlin he had been aware of this since he took that path in high school. This Monday, an impact on the chest during a National Football League (NFL) game between the Buffalo Bills, his team and the Cincinnati Bengals He went into cardiac arrest in the middle of the match. which forced him to undergo CPR on the field at Paul Brown Stadium and rushed him to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he is sedated and in critical condition.

Despite his 24 years, Hamlin is already a man hardened by accidents, although none had had consequences as serious as the one that led to the suspension of the game between the Bills and Bengals with six minutes left in the first quarter, when the locals won 7-3. Born on March 24, 1998 in McKees Rocks, a small town of less than 6,000 residents on the outskirts of Pittsburgh and on the banks of the Ohio River, he began his career in the sport of oval ball as soon as he entered high school in Downtown Pittsburgh, a Catholic.

Although he was also a member of the basketball and track and field teams during high school, his talents for the sport that Americans call dry “soccer” (what Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo or Neymar play is “soccer”) opened the doors. Arriving at the University of Pittsburgh in 2016 and there taking a degree in Communications and also a specialization in Sociology, but above all representing the Panthers in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championship.

Although his participation was heavily impacted by injuries in his first two college seasons, he established himself on the Pennsylvania state team in the next three. In the latest, in 2020, he was elected captain by his teammates, made the second set of the All Conference Teams (which brings together the most important players of the year) and participated in the Reese’s Senior Bowl, the all- college football star representing the national team (beaten American 27-24).

After completing his college career, during which he played in 46 games (recorded 275 tackles, 10 tackles for loss, 6 interceptions and 21 passes defended), on May 1, 2021, he was drafted 212th by the Buffalo Bills in the sixth round of draft . “The Bills took away a jewel of a player and a person. Damar was the quarterback for our defense. He is smart, tough and a confident tackler. He’s going to be a difference for Buffalo,” Pittsburgh Panthers head coach Pat Narduzzi predicted.

Statewide New York, with whom he signed a four-season contract, reunited with Dane Jacksonwho had been his teammate on the Panthers for four years and was drafted by the Bills in 2020.Damar is like my little brother and has been since I was younger.. We grew up in the same part of town, went to the same college, and now play on the same NFL team. You really can’t ask for a better step to success than that. We both remember how lucky we are,” Jackson celebrated.

Wearing number 31 on his uniform, Hamlin, 1.90 meters and 90 kilos, made his NFL debut on September 12, 2021, in a game that the Bills lost 23-16 with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the first week of games of that season. in which he played 14 games. This year, already with the number three on his shirt (the same one he had worn at university), he participated in the 16 games prior to this Monday, in which he suffered the stroke that kept him hospitalized.

In addition to his work on the playing field, also the defenseman for the Bills he has focused, since shortly before his arrival in the NFL, on charitable duties. In 2020 she created The Chasing M’s Foundation, a foundation that has primarily focused on developing toy delivery campaigns for children in vulnerable situations. “As I embark on my journey to the NFL, I will never forget where I came from and am committed to using my platform to positively impact the community that raised me,” Hamlin explained.

These days the player was driving a new campaign to raise funds through the GoFundMe platform to buy and donate toys at the daycare that Kelly, his mother, runs in McKees Rocks. The initial goal was to raise $2,500, but in the hours following Hamlin’s hospitalization, the contributions multiplied and this Tuesday more than 147,000 people had already handed over more than $3.9 millionSt.

Hamlin is also the founder and owner of Chasing M’s, a business dedicated to manufacturing and marketing apparel. The brand, as he explains on his website, is aimed at “those who have a dream and pursue it, who want something more and cannot be satisfied with being one of the masses”. Through Chasing M’s, Bills’ security donated clothing to Sto-Rox School District, a high school in his native McKees Rocks.

Other cases

Damar Hamlin’s collapse during the Bills-Bengals game is not the first medical emergency to occur during a game in the National Football League’s 102-year history. None of them were as serious as the one that occurred on October 24, 1971 and which cost the life of Chuck Hughes in a duel between the Detroit Lions and the Chicago Bears.

When the last quarter of that game was being played at Tiger Stadium, Hughes collapsed at the 20-yard line during an attack maneuver by his team. The 28-year-old catcher clutched his chest and immediately began convulsing. Although he was quickly assisted in the field, died of a myocardial infarction caused by coronary thrombosis. He was the only NFL player to die in a game.

Without going to that extreme, several soccer players have suffered injuries from game actions, which have prevented them from continuing their careers. On November 17, 1991, Mike Utley, also a Detroit Tigers player, suffered serious injuries to his sixth and seventh cervical vertebrae while trying to pin David Rocker in a game against the Los Angeles Rams. As a result, he lost the mobility of his lower limbs.

Another Tigers player, Reggie Brown, suffered a spinal cord injury on December 21, 1997, in the final game of the regular season against the New York Jets. After colliding with Adrian Murrell, he collapsed on the grass at the Pontiac Silverdome and was saved by rapid medical intervention with cardiopulmonary resuscitation, although he failed to return to court. Five years earlier, the Jets’ Dennis Byrd had suffered a fractured fifth cervical vertebra in a collision with teammate Scott Mersereau in a game with the Kansas City Chiefs.

On September 9, 2007, during the first week of play that season, Bills tight end Kevin Everett suffered a hit while attempting to tackle Domenik Hixon of the Denver Broncos. He was rushed to Millard Fillmore Gates Hospital in Buffalo, where he underwent surgery for dislocated fractures of the third and fourth cervical vertebrae.

The professional in charge of the operation, Andrew Cappuccino, believed that there was a “statistically very small” probability that the player would move under his own power again. After a long convalescence in Houston, where his family resided, the Bills wing walked again in December of that year, but was never able to resume his professional activity.

On December 4, 2017, during a game with the Cincinnati Bengals, Pittsburgh Steelers player Ryan Shazier suffered a spinal cord injury from a head-on tackle. Three days later, he underwent stabilization surgery to fix the injured section of his spine. Although he returned to training a year after his injury, he has failed to make a full recovery and announced his retirement on September 9, 2020.