Former Pitt star and Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest and had his heartbeat restored on the field at Paycor Stadium Monday night.
Hamlin was taken by ambulance, with both his mother and father, according to reports, to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center for testing and treatment. The Bills announced Tuesday afternoon that Hamlin spent the night in the intensive care unit, where he will stay, and he remains in critical condition.
Hamlin, a second-year player out of Pittsburgh by way of Pitt and Central Catholic High School, tackled Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins on a seemingly routine play in the first quarter, bounced back up to his feet, stumbled and suddenly collapsed back onto the field — his helmet bouncing off the turf.
Bills and Bengals players immediately signaled for help as Hamlin hit the ground, and first responders at Paycor Stadium immediately sprung into action.
Hamlin was moved by stretcher into an ambulance that was driven onto the field at Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati. Fox 19’s Joe Danneman reported both an AED and CPR were administered to Hamlin on the field before being moved into the ambulance.
Danneman also reported that the ambulance left Paycor Stadium for the University of Cincinnati Hospital with a police escort — the same hospital former Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier was taken to following a spinal injury in the same stadium in 2017.
Hamlin’s representative Jordon Rooney tweeted at 10:31 p.m. Monday night that Hamlin’s vitals were back to normal, stating that he was put to sleep in order for a breathing tube to be placed down his throat.
The NFL officially postponed the game to a later date just after 10 p.m. Monday night, but it didn’t come to the conclusion until the opposing head coaches — Bills HC Sean McDermott and Bengals HC Zac Taylor — pulled their respective teams into the locker rooms following the traumatic event.
Hamlin recorded 91 tackles (63 solo), six tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks, two pass breakups and a forced fumble in 15 games this season — starting every game in the Bills’ secondary since Week 3.
In five seasons at Pitt, he recorded 275 tackles (185 solo), 10 tackles for loss, six interceptions, 21 pass breakups and a fumble recovery.
UPDATE (9:50 PM)-
UPDATE (11:05 PM)-
This is a developing story that will be updated as more information becomes available.
Sending prayers!
Prayers are with you!!!
Get Well Soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please be ok, young brother. 🙏
Cardiac episodes seem to be happening more and more to young athletes lately.
No, they are happening less frequently because we have better screening methods for conditions such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. You want to spread your disgusting misinformation on covid vaccines- I am afraid you will find that Pitt fans are educated and you won’t find refuge here.
I was just making an easily verifiable observation. Who said anything about vaccines??
Amen. You said nothing wrong. The dude jumped on you assuming he knew you and your position on things.
You must be new to the internet and don’t know this is how these qAnon and anti-vaxx people operate. It is an anti-vaccine dog whistle to just make these observations. The observations are not true, but are presented in such a way to persuade the unintelligent or uninformed. In this case you have the recency bias. It plays off a catastrophic event that we all saw and have emotional ties to the player. Maybe you aren’t able to read between the lines, but I can. I’ll give you a nickel if you can decipher what “fjb” stands for. I’ve never… Read more »
I’m not here to pontificate about vaccines, despite all of your asinine assumptions. It’s sad that you turned this into a political thread and diverted attention from the real issue of player safety. Just today another 38-year-old former player tragically died from a mysterious cardiac episode. At what point can we start asking questions as to WHY this is happening? BTW, my initials are FJB. Seek therapy.
Actually, you are here trying to pontificate. And your little coy games are infuriating. Do you want to know what the medical reason for this episode was? Wait for the family to tell you. Look up commotio cordis if you want to speculate. But honestly you’re going to waltz into a Pittsburgh sports site and try to make this guy into your pawn? There is a special place in hell for you.
Well, I don’t ever remember, in 50 years of watching and playing football, seeing a player (24 year old safety) have a CA during a game. So not sure why you were such a jerk about his observation!
Yup, the last NFL player who had one was 52 years ago (Chuck Hughes). There have been several at the collegiate level and during practice. NBA has had a lot of sudden cardiac death (Reggie Lewis, Pete Maravich, to name a couple), and NCAA (Hank Gathers among others). It is rare, it is catastrophic, and if you want to know why I was such a jerk, it is because I refuse to let Damar be a pawn in a political misinformation campaign.
Who said anything about a vaccine? What does any of this have to do with a vaccine? Grow up Michael
I’ll say it. It’s happening all over the world. The number of young soccer players in Europe that have had cardiac episodes is disturbing. Shove your disgusting sheep like attitude, stop assuming and stop thinking you speak for Pitt fans. Friggin moron.
Fine, I’ll speak for the intelligent fans. You can speak for the idiots who don’t know about medicine or public health.
Yeah keep drinking the Kool Aid you’re a good puppy. You don’t speak for Pitt fans nor intelligent people. Try not to be such a dick and save your virtue signaling BS for the MsNBC site
Several heartfelt thoughts directed toward Damar Hamlin followed by comments about “cardiac episodes happening more and more”, “died from a mysterious cardiac episode”, “at what point can we start asking questions”, “disturbing”, “it’s happening all over the world”.
It all sounds so sinister, so would someone please step forward and explain to us uninformed posters their theory on why young athletes are experiencing cardiac episodes…or, better still, we could all just offer our thoughts and prayers to a very classy Pitt grad.
In the time it took you to write this you could have looked it up. There are unprecedented amounts of cardiac episodes in age groups not associated with these problems. Notably Euro soccer players. Recently a story was released claiming that climate change is the reason for unprecedented young people having cardiac events, I’m guessing Michael would believe that too. Lol. Also loved that self serving virtue signal at the end of your post. Did it make you feel good?
Actually wasn’t looking for more examples, I was simply asking for someone to come forward with their own opinion on why this is happening and, since you obviously avoided that, I guess I’m still waiting to be educated on this subject.
I thought I did with the first comment. Unprecedented action by government and medicine followed by unprecedented medical problems makes it pretty obvious that someone should be looking into our hastily made vaccines as the source of all these 20 somethings having cardiac events. I didn’t want to go deep with this but when a left wing slave like Michael tries to shame someone for bringing up the obvious I get annoyed as I believe these tactics are BS and need to be called out.
Thank you for responding and you are certainly entitled to have an opinion on the vaccine, but I’m pretty sure that Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest due to a football player running directly into his chest (unless that’s also up for debate).
So, someone commenting about more and more young people having cardiac events had absolutely no relevance to the original story. Now we’re talking about soccer players in Europe while a young man is lying in a Cincinnati hospital fighting for his life…why?
Because “I’m pretty sure” doesn’t come close to proving you are right, I do acknowledge that it is possible that the hit is the cause of this but I find it highly suspect and one hell of a coincidence that after over 100 years of football and more so with rugby I have never seen this happen in a game. Never. Since our government and media spent 2 years demonizing those of us who said no I fully expect them to blame everything but, as I pointed out some “study” suggested that “climate change” was the reason for unprecedented number… Read more »