Damar Hamlin's Injury

By Madeline Perini ('24)

Every week at 8:00pm viewers from all over the country tune into Monday Night Football and January 2nd was no different. The Bengals and Bills game was a big match in terms of playoff contention. However, things took a turn for the worse with four minutes left in the first quarter as Damar Hamlin, a football player who plays for the Buffalo Bills was injured. The injury surfaced when Damar Hamlin went for a hit on Tee Higgins, a player on the opposing team, the Cincinnati Bengals. It was a pretty clean hit and both players got up as usual to continue on the game. Seconds later, Hamlin collapsed onto the floor, and went into cardiac arrest, sending a great shock to the spectators as the entire stadium went silent. Doctors later found out that Hamlin’s cardiac arrest resulted from the impact of the hit and in order to resuscitate him they performed ten straight minutes of CPR on the field. Following that, he was immediately rushed to Cincinnati Medical, where he remained for over a week under heavy observation.

Every team in the league has posted statements regarding the incident, players visited him in the hospital and the fans have done everything they possibly could, by being sources of motivation to both Damar and his family. Besides, Damar runs a clothing brand called Chasing M’s, which hosted a virtual toy drive via GoFundMe, with a goal of $2,500. As of January 8th, over 8 million dollars have been raised, which proves how much fans cared for Hamlin. Via Twitter, Damar says he will use the money to benefit youth in education in sports and education, as well as making t-shirts to raise money for the trauma center he was admitted to in Cincinnati.