Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin has shown “substantial improvement,” his doctors said Thursday, three days removed from suffering cardiac arrest during Monday’s game against the Bengals in Cincinnati.
Dr. Timothy Pritts and Dr. William Knight of the University of Cincinnati Medical Center addressed the media in the first statement from doctors and detailed Hamlin’s recovery as well as the road ahead.
“We would like to share that there has been substantial improvement in his condition over the past 24 hours,” Pritts said. “We had significant concern about him after the injury and after the event on the field and he is making substantial progress. As of this morning, he is beginning to awaken and it appears that his neurological conditional and function is intact.”
Still, Pritts said Hamlin, 24, “continues to be critically ill” and remains in the intensive care unit. His family remains by his side.
Knight noted that Hamlin has been on a “long and difficult road. He has been fairly sick and made a remarkable improvement. He’s demonstrating signs of recovery and improvement.”
Hamlin is still on a ventilator and cannot yet talk as a result. Pritts noted that Hamlin woke up Wednesday night and asked via writing whether the Bills won the game. The game was suspended.
Per Pritts, doctors responded to his question with the following: “The answer is yes. Damar, you won the game of life.”
Hamlin does, however, have movement in his hands and feet.
Thursday’s news is nothing short of positive considering there have been concerns he could have sustained a traumatic brain injury because of a lack of oxygen.
The doctors praised the Bills’ medical staff for the work they did on the field to immediately recognize the severity of Hamlin’s condition and begin appropriate treatment, including CPR. He went into cardiac arrest after being involved in a tackle of Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins. Hamlin rose to his feet, then collapsed a few seconds later.
“We cannot credit the Bills medical team enough,” Knight said. “It’s rare to have something this serious to happen and to recognize it so quickly.”
Coach Sean McDermott and quarterback Josh Allen spoke publicly for the first time since Monday. McDermott thanked the Bills’ medical team, the Bengals’ organization and coach Zac Taylor, and fans of both teams for their support.
“The amount of faith, hope and love that we saw on display the last three days has been nothing short of amazing,” McDermott said.
Allen added his gratitude to the medical staff for “working as a single-cell symbiote and saving his life.”
“Being on that field, you lose sleep,” Allen said. “You hurt for your brother. A lot of shared grief. … Coach handled it as perfect as anybody could.”
Bills offensive lineman Dion Dawkins took to social media to acknowledge Buffalo assistant athletic trainer Denny Kellington, who Dawkins said gave Hamlin CPR.
“Denny Kellington let’s praise this name and person for reviving Our Brother Damar on the field,” Dawkins wrote on Twitter. “Denny gave CPR and chest compressions to get his Heart Back Beating #DennyKellington And also thank you to all the doctors and Medical professionals that have helped and assisted.”
McDermott confirmed that Hamlin’s father, Mario, addressed the Bills in a Zoom call Wednesday to update the condition of his son. Mario Hamlin said he was making progress, and per the network, “the team needed (to hear it).”
McDermott said Mario Hamlin also told the players to focus on Sunday’s regular-season finale against the New England Patriots because it is what Damar Hamlin would want, all but confirming that they plan to proceed with the game. The Bills returned to practice Thursday.
As for the postponed Bills-Bengals game, McDermott recounted the sequence of events Monday night that began when he told referee Shawn Smith that he thought the Bills would need some time to recover after Hamlin was taken away by ambulance. Taylor crossed the field to talk with McDermott, and Smith told both coaches they could go to their locker rooms.
“I went in and addressed the team and just felt like overall, it was gonna be really hard to put them back out there,” McDermott said, “but I wanted to give them the option to go back out there if they wanted to. And led by Josh and a couple of the other captains, they decided not to go back out there.”
From there, they went out of the locker room to Taylor, the officials and NFL chief football administrative officer Dawn Aponte as the league began the process of officially postponing the game.
–Field Level Media
