A tragedy took place during the Monday Night Football game between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals. Twenty Four year-old Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field after a tackle on Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins. The medical staff at the stadium had to administer CPR on Hamlin as he wasn’t able to breathe on his own. This was a very unprecedented situation as it was the first time CPR has had to be performed on the field during an NFL game since 1997.

Currently, Hamlin is at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, and is on a ventilator to assist him with breathing. Hamlin’s uncle, Dorrian Glen, told reporters that his nephew had to be resuscitated twice, once on the field and then again when he arrived at the hospital. Glen also explained that Hamlin originally had to use 100 percent of the ventilator to receive oxygen, but is now down to just using 50 percent which is a positive sign. 

Not even two full days after the accident, Hamlin awoke and was able to communicate with the doctors through writing since he still has had to use an oxygen tube. The fact that his brain was still seemingly intact after a lengthy period of time being fed oxygen manually and suffering cardiac arrest is amazing. The skill and speed of all the healthcare workers involved with caring for Hamlin most definitely saved his life.

The entire NFL and sports community as a whole have come together to give Damar their full support. In 2020 after Hamlin’s final college season at Pitt, he launched his charity Chasing M’s. Recently, Hamlin held his third annual toy drive through the charity. Prior to the Monday night game, the charity had less than $3000 in donations. Not even a full day after the incident took place, a total of 150,000 individual donations were made and over $4 million was raised for the charity. 

After Hamlin initially was taken off the field in an ambulance, the reports were that both teams had five minutes to warm up before play was to resume. Bills head coach Sean McDermott met with Bengals coach Zac Taylor and decided that the best option would be to suspend the game. The NFL officially announced Thursday evening that the game would be declared a no contest and that the league would consider playing the AFC Championship game at a neutral site depending on who ends up playing in the game.