Most of all, the horrifying collapse of the Buffalo Bills' Damar Hamlin is a personal calamity for the player and his devastated family. In Buffalo and Cincinnati and around the country, those watching felt the trauma in a visceral if tangential way, but the focus ― by the players, the referees, the team and the fans ― was where it should have been: on the life, suddenly precarious, of this 24-year-old athlete.
Hamlin collapsed late in the first quarter of Monday's game at Cincinnati's Paycor Stadium. He went into cardiac arrest, but on-field medical intervention restored his heartbeat. As of Tuesday afternoon, he was in critical condition.
As devastating as the injury was ― playing out on live television ― it was in some way consoling to see the reaction of players on the field and fans in the stands. Rivalries were forgotten as health care workers performed what looked like a medical miracle, stabilizing Hamlin enough to be taken to a local hospital.
On the field, athletes wept. So, no doubt, did fans at home. Players and other teams shared prayers for Hamlin. Appropriately, the league suspended the game. It should think about simply canceling it.
Hamlin, a safety, was drafted by the Bills less than two years ago. In Monday's opening quarter, he tackled the Bengals' Tee Higgins. He got up and then collapsed. The play appeared to be routine, and not especially violent. But for the prompt emergency care and the ready ambulance, he would surely have died on the field.
All sports include some risk of injury. Sometimes, as in boxing, the threat is obvious. Former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali suffered from Parkinson's disease brought on, many believe, by repeated blows to the head. Ali once estimated that he took 29,000 shots to the head over the course of his career. Hockey and, of course, football also contain that risk.
But there was no obvious sign of that prior to Hamlin's collapse. Higgins hit Hamlin in the chest with his right shoulder, but the Bills safety was able to drag him down. The medical crisis quickly ensued.
While it's too early to know what caused Hamlin's injury, one possible cause being discussed is known as commotio cordis. As the director of the center for arrhythmia research at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine explained to Time magazine, the condition occurs only in a specific set of circumstances: when a sharp blow lands directly over the heart "at the exact wrong location at the exact wrong timing" during the heart's rhythm cycle.
Another possible explanation is an underlying heart condition, not an uncommon problem for millions of Americans. Despite the violent hits associated with football, few people associate them with cardiac arrests.
Maybe some other cause will be identified. It will be important to discover what steps, if any, might have prevented this terrible event. But if we don't know why Hamlin collapsed, we do know this: Top athletes, men and women, grow up with a passion to play. They work for it. Hamlin, it is safe to say, was where he wanted to be.
The young man's collapse was a disturbing reminder of the career-ending injury of Kevin Everett in 2007. The Bills' tight end suffered a catastrophic spinal injury, also while making a tackle. His prospects seemed bleak at the time, but he has made a remarkable recovery.
Please, may Damar Hamlin do the same.
This article was published in the Buffalo News and distributed by Tribune Content Agency.
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