Damar Hamlin’s recovery from a cardiac arrest in January 2010 has been cleared to resume full football activities with the Buffalo Bills and the Chasing M Foundation
Buffalo Bills’ safety Damar Hamlin has been cleared to resume full football activities, just a little more than four months after he collapsed on the field after suffering a cardiac arrest.
Hamlin’s heart stopped beating after a tackle during an away game against the Cincinnati Bengals on Jan. 2. He received CPR on the fields within minutes, which experts credit with drastically improving his odds of survival.
He spent a week at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center being treated, and doctors said he was on an accelerated path to recovery. After a few more days of evaluation and testing at a hospital in Buffalo, doctors decided he could “continue his rehabilitation at home and with the Bills.”
“They’re all in lockstep of what this was and that he’s clear to resume full activity,” he added. “He’s just like anyone else who was coming back from an injury or whatever.”
He also received the NFLPA’s Alan Page Community Award, which rewards the player who goes “above and beyond to perform community service in his team city and/or hometown.” A toy drive sponsored by Hamlin’s charity, the Chasing M Foundation, has raised more than $9 million, almost entirely in the wake of his injury.
President Biden praised Hamlin’s “courage, resilience and spirit” when the two met in Washington, D.C., late last month. The President can be seen in a video asking the athlete if he will be able to play again.
The Wild Moment: Seeing What Happens When You’re Still in It. Why I’m So Glad I Was Here, but What I Don’t Know About It
My heart is still in it. I love the game and my heart is still in it. It’s something I want to prove to myself. I want to show people that they can make their own decisions about fear. You can keep going in something without having the answers and without knowing what’s at the end of the tunnel. You might feel anxious, but you keep going, you put the right foot in front of the left one. I want to stand for that.
“Not to sound cliché, but the wild moment is every day just being able to wake up and take deep breaths and live a peaceful life. To have a family, to have people around me that love me and care about me, and for those people to still have me in their lives. They almost lost me. I died on national TV in front of the whole world. I see it from many different perspectives. For them to still have me around, and for me to still have them, it goes both ways. I have lost a bunch of people in my life, and I know a lot of people who have also lost people in their lives. There is the biggest blessing of it all. For myself and my people to still have me.