Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - In the aftermath of Damar Hamlin's sudden collapse on the football field during the Bills v. Bengals game, D'Youville University is teaming up with Sports Medicine Concepts to train local athletic trainers and coaches at both college and high school levels for emergency, life-threatening situations.
"After the injury that really hit Buffalo hard with Damar Hamlin, it made us, as an institution, look at how we can impact the community, knowing that we are heavily involved in athletics and also health care as an institution," said Ona Halladay, Executive Director of Athletics and Recreation at D'Youville. "We wanted to put our efforts into something that could save a life within our community, knowing that that kind of training isn't necessarily the training that high school coaches get, that all athletic trainers get, even at our level, at the college level."
These classes, which will be held at D'Youville University's Health Professions Hub on January 30th from 5-9 p.m., will educate participants on how to effectively respond to four critically-life threatening conditions, part of the Core4 program: cervical spine injury, isolated head trauma, truncal trauma and cardiac arrest.
"Simulation is something that we do at D'Youville University, in our health sciences programs and something we think is a really valuable tool to educate people. So it's just a different way of training and getting people comfortable with with potential emergency situations on an athletic field," says Halladay.
The class is heavily discounted to $3 a person, in honor of Damar Hamlin's number on the field, although donations for future classes are greatly appreciated. This was made possible due to the courtesy of Sports Medicine Concepts as well as the fundraising efforts from the university.
"The whole training class costs over $10,000. As a D'Youville community, we're investing in this because we think it's important. We have asked our university community to donate and we've already raised over $1,400 for this cause just within our community," Halladay said.
This training class is reserved for trainers and coaches with class capacity size expanding, from 25 to 50. To sign up, go to https://dyouvilleevents.totalcamps.com/shop/product/157930.
