Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - As 2023 has drawn to a close, it may behove us to recall and reflect on one of the scariest but certainly most emotionally inspiring stories of the prior year in the NFL, the sudden collapse and quick recovery of Buffalo Bills safety, Damar Hamlin.
On January 2, 2023, Hamlin suddenly collapsed on the field of Paycor Stadium during the biggest "Monday Night Football" game of the season against the Cincinnati Bengals. Hamlin fell just seconds after he made a tackle late in the first quarter.
The stadium-goers and the millions watching on TV across the nation were stunned and feared the worse as a group of players, coaches and medical personnel surrounded Hamlin for what felt like several hours. They gave him CPR and used an AED on the field until he was whisked away to the local hospital in critical condition.
He eventually made a remarkable full recovery and is now playing football again. It was later announced that Hamlin suffered from a condition known as 'commotio cordis'.
"Basically, he died on the field and was brought back due to that medical staff, which did a remarkable job. That in itself is a form of miracle," Dr. Laszlo Mechtler, Medical Director of DENT Neurological Institute, tells WBEN.
As a physician, it's not an expected result. I say that because the diagnosis is commotio cordis, which is a traumatic injury to the chest causing the heart stop beating. He did not have a heart attack, he did not have damage to his heart. His heart is healthy. It was just an unusual situation where the trauma caused his rhythm to stop. It was like a perfect storm. When they brought him back, the good news is he did not have any brain injury and the good news is he did not have any long-term heart disease or problems of his heart. He's got a very healthy heart. It was just a fluke incident."
According to Dr. Mechtler, commotio cordis is very rare and requires a number of things to go exactly right or in this case, wrong. And although becoming more common amongst those who play professional sports, it really was a miracle that Hamlin was able to come back and continue to play the game the 25-year-old loves so much: football.
"It was really a fluke trauma, hitting the [breathing] rhythm, stopping the heart from beating at a normal level. It is something that doesn't occur frequently, but when it does, often you see that in patients who are athletic and in sports, there are multiple examples of this in sports," said the doctor, who recalled a time where a year and half ago, a Manchester United soccer player, Christian Eriksen, went down on the field and was technically dead for several minutes, only to be resuscitated and later make a return to professional ball.
As a result of this rare occurrence, it sparked an interest and desire for many across the nation and perhaps the world to learn a practice that could save a life: CPR and AED training. This is what many have dubbed, 'The Damar Hamlin Effect'.
The American Heart Association reported that it wasn't long after the collapse when they started to see exponential growth in traffic for the hands-only CPR section of their webpage.
"We have seen so much interest throughout the year. Obviously right away, there was a really big spike nationwide, we had a 620% increase in traffic to our CPR materials online. Throughout the year, we have been doing several community trainings, we've been working with the Buffalo Bills on the heartbeat program, which has reached 1000s and 1000s of people with this with hands-only CPR education," said Kristi Smorol, American Heart Association Communications Director.
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