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Buffalo Bills running back Damar Hamlin is awake in a Cincinnati hospital, neurologically sound and moving his hands and feet, doctors said Thursday, news that has brought relief and joy to fans across the country days after the 24-year-old went into cardiac arrest during the game. .
And your first question when you wake up?
“Did we win?” Hamlin scribbled on a clipboard, according to Dr. Timothy Pritts, vice president of clinical operations at UC Health.
“Yes, Damar, you won. You won the game of life,” Pritts said at a news conference in Cincinnati Thursday afternoon, paraphrasing the response of one of his medical partners.
Hamlin collapsed during the first quarter of the Bills’ game at Cincinnati on Monday, a contest that was postponed and then canceled by the NFL Thursday night. League officials will lead a meeting Friday with all NFL teams to discuss proposed playoff options.
As his Bills teammates prepare for Sunday’s game, Hamlin remains on a ventilator and has been communicating with yes and no answers by shaking his head, nodding or writing short notes, according to Pritts.
“So we know it’s not just that the lights are on, but that he’s home. And it seems like all cylinders are firing inside his brain,” Pritts said.
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Hamlin has been treated at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center since being taken off the field Monday night.
Associates of Hamlin, who had been sedated and intubated, released news Thursday morning that he had woken up, though details about when he woke up were not immediately available. He has been held by family at the hospital, his agent Ron Butler told CNN on Thursday.
Hamlin is still critically ill, Pritts said, but his condition has improved substantially in the past 24 hours and “his neurological condition and function appear to be intact,” Pritts said.
“This marks a very good turning point in his ongoing care,” Pritts said. “He still has many, many steps ahead of him. From our point of view, we would like him to continue to improve, to be breathing fully on his own and to be ready to be discharged from hospital.”
Hamlin was resuscitated and intubated on the field, according to Dr. William Knight IV, a professor in the department of emergency medicine at the University of Cincinnati.
Buffalo Bills offensive lineman Dion Dawkins tweeted Thursday that assistant athletic trainer Denny Kellington was the person who performed CPR on the field. Bills coach Sean McDermott said Kellington saved Hamlin’s life.
“As they say, practice pays and in this case it did,” McDermott said at a post-practice press conference dedicated to Hamlin. “But again, the context, for an assistant to be in that position and need to take the action that he did and step up and take over the way he did, and there were others on the field as well , it’s nothing short of incredible and (the) courage it took, you talk about a true leader, a true hero, to save Damar’s life.
It’s still unclear what caused Hamlin’s cardiac arrest, and the NFL will investigate what could have led to it, its chief medical officer, Dr. Allen Sills, said Wednesday.
Thursday’s news prompted celebratory comments and tweets from his teammates, players around the league and beyond, including President Joe Biden.
“We heard the news this morning and nothing could have been said to lower our day,” Bills quarterback Josh Allen, who choked up as he spoke of watching Hamlin go down, said at the news conference in Thursday. “We are very happy for him and his family.
“We just want, we just want to love him, so the next chance we get, I don’t know when it’s going to be, if we see him soon, it’s going to be great.”
Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins, who Hamlin tackled before collapsing, told reporters he spoke to Hamlin’s mother Thursday morning and she told him he was fine, according to the affiliate from CNN WXIX.
He said knowing Hamlin’s medical progress “makes me feel better inside.”
The president tweeted at Hamlin, referring to a phone call he made on Wednesday.
“Great news. Damar, as I told your mom and dad yesterday, Jill and I, along with all of America, are praying for you and your family,” Biden posted on Twitter.
The details about Hamlin’s condition come as NFL players contemplate an emotional return to the field this weekend, with all 32 teams set for their final regular-season games scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.
The Bills and Bengals will enter the playoffs having played one less game than other teams in the American Football Conference.
“When we considered the football schedule, our principles have been to limit disruptions to the league and minimize competitive inequities,” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. “I recognize that there is no perfect solution.”
At Friday’s meeting with the teams, league officials will discuss a two-part proposal for playoff options, including the possibility of holding the AFC championship game at a neutral site. The NFL’s proposal would apply “if participating teams had played an unequal number of games and both could have been the No. 1 seed and hosted the game if all AFC clubs had played a full regular season of 17 games”.
There are three scenarios that would require a neutral site, the NFL said. The other part of the proposition involves the Bengals’ playoff trajectory should they lose to Baltimore on Sunday.
“The proposal we are asking ownership to consider, however, addresses the most important potential equitable issues created by the difficult, but necessary, decision not to play the game under these extraordinary circumstances,” Goodell said.
The Bills, scheduled to host the Patriots on Sunday, met Wednesday for a visit and held their first full practice of the week Thursday. The players, already dealing with last year’s racist shooting and the recent deadly snowstorm in their hometown, had a Zoom call Wednesday with Hamlin’s father, Mario Hamlin, who said his son was making progress, a source in the Bills organization told CNN on Thursday.
McDermott said having Hamlin’s father talk to the team helped them refocus on football. And “today’s news, as Josh alluded to, was a big help in getting us back focused on this weekend’s game,” he told reporters at Thursday’s press conference.
Since his hospitalization, Hamlin has received an outpouring of national support from fans and professional sports players, including more than $7 million donated to his foundation’s GoFundMe toy drive as of Thursday morning. Several athletes have donned Hamlin’s No. 3 or his jersey, while teams have honored him with Jumbotron messages and light displays in their stadiums.
A spokesman for Fanatics, a company that sells licensed team merchandise, said Bills jerseys with Hamlin’s name and No. 3 are the best-selling jerseys in all of sports. Fanatics co-president Michael Rubin tweeted Tuesday that the company, the NFL and the players’ union will donate all proceeds from jersey sales to Hamlin’s charity.
League teams honored Damar Hamlin in their stadiums. ❤️💙 pic.twitter.com/WyMLTqLjJY
— NFL (@NFL) January 4, 2023
Hamlin collapsed shortly after a collision in which a Bengals wide receiver tried to run past Hamlin, who had come up to make a tackle, with about six minutes left in the first quarter of Monday’s game. Hamlin still spun the receiver on the ground and stood up, but within seconds he fell and was motionless.
His heartbeat was restored on the field, the Bills have said, before he was carried from the stadium in an ambulance as players and fans looked on in shock and visibly emotional.
Not only was Hamlin sedated, he was on a ventilator and was also “stomach-rolled” at the hospital to help relieve some of the strain on his damaged lungs, his Uncle Dorrian Glenn. Details about what hurt Hamlin’s lungs were not available.
Before news broke Thursday that Hamlin was alert, some around the league had been openly weighing his availability to play this weekend.
Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow told reporters Wednesday that he “probably wants to play” in Sunday’s game between the Bengals and Ravens, but there may be others who don’t.
“I’m sure if you polled the locker room, there would be mixed votes,” Burrow said. “Personally, I think playing is going to be difficult. … I think getting back to normal as fast as you can is how I personally deal with this kind of thing. But … everyone has a different way of dealing with it.”
Among those rushed to the Cincinnati hospital after Hamlin collapsed was Indianapolis Colts safety Rodney Thomas II, one of Hamlin’s childhood friends. Thomas visited while Hamlin was sedated and intubated this week, he said.
“There’s no doubt in my mind” that Hamlin will recover, Thomas told reporters Wednesday.
“I know he could hear me,” Thomas said, adding that he was holding Hamlin’s hand. “Even if he couldn’t hear me, it didn’t matter. I said what I had to say.”
“Basically (I said) I love him, I’ve got his back and that…