It happens in HS sports as well. Players just drop after a random hit. It happened to a kid in the next town over. Heart attack after a collision during a soccer game. I wonder if there’s something about growth and development in that age range that makes someone more susceptible?
The sum total of all people who receive CPR isn't a great population to assess specific risks out of, though. In this case it appears there was a very likely cause (which your video explained) which had essentially no underlying conditions that predicated it, along with nearly-instant professional help. It looks like survival rates are >50% now thanks to AEDs and better awareness. Terrifying event. I essentially missed it because it happened so fast - the play ended, Hamlin popped back up, my attention drifted, cut to injury timeout whose cause was uncertain, and the next thing I know they're showing Josh Allen full on crying on the sidelines. It was heart wrenching - "sad" is probably the wrong word because I'm not pretending like I know the guy personally, but I felt completely numb. Just kind of stared at the coverage for a few minutes, then muted the stupid people, then wandered off to bed. Felt like I was on autopilot. I can't imagine playing football again after that even if the doctors clear you. That must be an awful mental struggle - do you go back to your absolute lifetime dream even though you almost died?
In 1971 Chuck Hughes a backup wide receiver for the Detroit Lions collapsed from a heart attack and died on the field. What happened is not unprecedented in the NFL. What surprised me is the NFL did the right thing and suspended the game. They kept playing in 1971.
From everything I've been able to find online (so take it with a grain of salt) is that the NFL only suspended the game AFTER both teams said they weren't going to go back out there. Initially they only wanted to give them a 5 minute "break" after the ambulance left the field, but both coaches told the field crew they were leaving.
How would the NFL handle replaying the game? Don’t see how they do it this week with a short week but don’t see how they squeeze it in before playoffs. Just call it a wash and calculate the wins/losses with one less game? We’ll see about the grapevine works this time. Friend of a friend works at the hospital and said he was dead and then back tracked and said they were just keeping him alive on a ventilator.
Most adults stop playing contact sports after high school, so I think it might just be a much lower incidence rate of the actual hits. Or high schoolers just have weak bird bones in their rib cage.
It's probably less than that. I was an volunteer EMT-B for two years and most people on which CPR is attempted never make it to the hospital. It's also pretty rough, especially on older folks. You can hear and feel their ribs breaking when doing chest compressions. People don't jolt up awake if it's successfully performed. The point isn't to revive them, at least not completely. The point is to keep the heart beating so the brain keeps getting blood flow.
people also don’t understand how physically exhausting it is for the person performing it. The lady I did it on was morbidly obese. To do the chest compressions correctly I had to push down pretty fucking hard. I don’t know exactly how long I was doing them, as I stopped once I got a stable pulse which was shortly before ems got there, but I know I was on the phone with 911 for almost 9 minutes until they arrived. I was drenched in sweat and exhausted when I stopped
I remember seeing a CPR bot that was used by some EMTs in New Orleans... and it was fucking insane. It was like a massive hydraulic pump hammering the shit out of the chest cavity of the person on the receiving end. It was nuts. Something like this: In other news, it sounds like they're not going to be replaying the game this week. I can only imagine the havoc this is going to play in a bunch of fantasy leagues.
And they’ve come a long way. When I was a paramedic they looked more like this: God how I hated it. Pain in the ass to dig out and you have to stop CPR to get it into position. Driver takes a corner a little too fast and you have to reposition the patient’s body. Better to grab a fireman to go with you and take turns doing CPR the old fashioned way. I’d take the sore back after over fucking around with that thing. Some of the misinformation out there today is simply frightening. Our buddy who is an ER doctor was just interviewed on the news about this situation and the reporter kept cutting away from the interview and interjecting comments like, “Cardiac arrest is not easily detected.” My wife (former ER nurse ) and I were like, “WTF”.
One of the things I have learned in life is that anybody who is on the news and is responsible for reporting the news and has to try and become some sort of nuanced expert in a specific topic at hand, is a moron who will get shit very, very wrong. That's why I basically ignore any of the crap that any reporter has to say on a subject. Even the clips they pull from the subject matter experts will be done wrong. I fucking hate the "news".
The player's uncle has stated that he had to be resuscitated twice: once on the field, and once after he arrived at the hospital
Anyone finding the radio silence odd? The updates have been vague and detailess. Maybe the family is just super private about it but youd think theyd have a more detailed presser with the hospital. Details are so sparse makes me think they are hiding how bad it is to not rock the boat with the NFL who themselves have to walk on eggshells about the situation.
My wife is a nurse for a cardiac surgeon. She explained that when this happens they cool the body and keep them sedated for 48 or more hours to keep the body from accidentally cooking the brain. There is no update because they aren’t out of that cycle yet.
Damar Hamlin is now breathing on his own and has been speaking to some of his teammates via Facetime. Great job by the medical personnel involved in his health crisis.
And reports are coming out that the Bengals are gonna protest the ruling if they end up playing on a neutral field or doing a coin flip or basically anything other than being in their favor.
I don't blame them, the NFL already has a rule in place for this type of scenario. Why do they suddenly want to change it?