Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - It has been nearly 10 full days since Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest on the field of Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati during a Monday night showdown with the Bengals.
After several minutes of medical personnel from the Bills and other professionals in Cincinnati administering CPR and using an AED to restore his heartbeat, Hamlin was loaded into an ambulance and transported to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he was sedated and listed in critical condition.
After a week in Cincinnati and showing remarkable progress in his recovery after waking up the Wednesday after hi medical emergency, doctors gave Hamlin the green light to travel back to Buffalo to continue his treatment at Buffalo General Medical Center.
Then on Wednesday, Hamlin finally got the news he was looking for, as he was discharged from Buffalo General and was able to return home to continue his rehabilitation.
Doctors were amazed by the incredible progress Hamlin made over the course of several days since nearly losing his life on the football field in a freak accident. However, doctors say it was the quick and swift actions of the Bills' medical team to identify Hamlin's cardiac arrest and start CPR within a minute of his collapse.
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The NFL and all 32 teams each have an Emergency Action Plan in place for games over the course of the year for instances of severe trauma that may take place in a game. Hamlin's medical emergency in Cincinnati was said to be a perfect execution of the league's Emergency Action Plan, where medical professionals have praised the work of all involved on the field who helped save Hamlin's life.
While professional sports leagues have an Emergency Action Plan in place for the rare cases like Hamlin, or other trauma-related incidents, what about sports at the local level, including high school sports? In the light of what happened with Hamlin in Cincinnati, what does an emergency response plan look like for local schools?
"Most schools have an Emergency Action Plan in place that includes everything from shooter on site to injuries. It covers just about everything," said Scott Dinse, Director of Physical Therapy and Athletic Training for UBMD Orthopedics and Sports Medicine. "New York State Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA) is encouraging athletic departments to use a [website] called AnyoneCanSaveALife.org. It's a great website, they have a spreadsheet checkoff list for coaches and athletic directors to use. And again, [NYSPHSAA] is trying to really promote each and every school to us that."
Some schools across Western New York even hire the services of UBMD Orthopedics for athletic trainers, and they all have emergency action plans for different venues and different sites.
"All of our athletic trainers carry AEDs with them, they're all trained annually in CPR and AED. That's an annual review, as opposed to every two years, which is recommended by the American Heart Association. And we do emergency sideline review every year. What do we do in case of an emergency, just to make everybody think about it and review their own situation," Dinse said. "That's kind of an overview, and New York State has been very active and leading, as far as Emergency Action Plans and preventing injuries and decreasing the risk of sudden death."
Over the years, measures to prepare for instances of severe trauma have been accelerated, with New York State implementing a number of different laws, regulations and rule changes to ensure the safety of student athletes everywhere and in every sport.
While not every sport is the same, as Dinse explains, Emergency Action Plans for schools tend to be venue specific, rather than tailored to specific sporting events.
"Football and track will be the same, if the track runs around the football field, but football and volleyball will be different because volleyballs in the gym. We provide Emergency Action Plans for all of Section VI championship events, and we try to boil those down to the essentials so that everybody reads them," he said. "We find that if people have to read a three-page report, they say 'Yep, I read it,' and then never take a look at it. So we use a bullet-point format so that people check the emergency numbers, check the access and egress for emergency, how do they contact EMS. On campus at U.B., you have to dial University Police as opposed to 9-1-1, different venues are different that way.
"It's about everybody knowing what has to be done. Who's gonna meet the EMS, who's going to take care of crowd control, who's going to actually provide hands-on services, things like that."
Over the years, there have been some pretty well-documented cases where an Emergency Action Plan has needed to be implemented during the course of a sporting event in Western New York. While every situation may be different, it's about the execution of the plan, and knowing how to handle different situations when they unfold.
"If you remember the basketball referee, Benjy Bluman, who was saved that Williamsville North a couple of years ago, it was a combination of the athletic trainer, a parent who was a physician in the stands, the administration getting EMS on and into the facility quickly. We've had UBMD, a parent who was saved similarly from cardiac arrest," Dinse pointed out. "What I tell my staff is you're on an island. You have to make friends, you have to know all of your resources, you need to know which parents are nurses and which parents are physicians, which can help. Similarly with coaches, some coaches might just melt down in the sight of their athlete having a life threatening condition. You have to know that, and have them do something that is not going to jeopardize the athlete. So it's very specific that way with who's involved with a given situation."
When looking back on how the Bills' medical staff handled Hamlin's situation a week-and-a-half ago, Dinse says they did an awesome job performing at a level that far exceeds anything many people will see in the community. However, he does say that the circumstances were incredibly different from anything that's possible to happen during a high school event.
While no one can predict when any Emergency Action Plan may need to be utilized in a given high school event, medical professionals everywhere continue to preach the importance of more people either learning the importance of CPR, and getting brushed up on the latest procedures.
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While coaches and other members of a school's athletic department may be certified and know bystander CPR, doctors like Dr. Kevin Gibbons from University at Buffalo Neurosurgery believe people over age 12 in the community should know bystander CPR.
"You certainly can't require an ambulance to be at every Little League Baseball game, but you can increase the safety by having a community-wide effort to have individuals trained in bystander CPR," said Gibbons during a recent appearance on WBEN. "I'm not sure that rules or regulations would be the answer. I think a wide community effort is the best way to go, and I would encourage people, in addition to the bystander CPR, to take the Stop The Bleed course in the American College of Surgeons, which I'm afraid in our violent society is a skill that needs to become more widespread."
"The more people who know how to do CPR and emergency first aid, things to help save a life, the better off we're going to be," Dinse added. "Secondly, just being familiar with those techniques allows you to assist and be comfortable in getting emergency EMS to the site - helping with crowd control and keeping people calm. The more people we can get familiar with CPR and first aid - I know there's a big push in the high schools now where kids are almost required to take CPR and first aid - the better off we're going to be."
Hear more of our conversation with Dinse available in the player below: