JUST IN: Doctors Say Damar Hamlin Is Awake — And His First Question Was Who Won the Game
Doctors at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center confirm that Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin is awake and communicating with them through writing and asking who won the game.
Hamlin went into cardiac arrest after he made a tackle during Monday’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals. He received CPR on the field and was rushed to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he was intubated and listed in critical condition. On Thursday afternoon, Dr. Timothy Pritts and Dr. William Knight spoke to the media about Hamlin’s situation, and they both confirmed that Hamlin could communicate with them through writing.
“We wanted to allow him to gradually wake up as the rest of his body was healing,” Dr. Pritts said. “Last night, he was able to emerge and follow commands and even asked who had won the game.”
The doctors were asked by John Scott from Spectrum News in Buffalo how common it was for a patient with this severity of a medical emergency to this level of improvement from Monday to Thursday afternoon.
“It’s variable,” Dr. Knight said. “We do manage post-cardiac arrest patients routinely as part of critical care in all of our ICUs, and it’s variable, but it speaks to his age, his incredible fitness, and then again, I don’t think we can emphasize enough the immediate medical response. The fact that he had highly trained professionals from the Buffalo Bills in addition to having paramedics, emergency physicians, respiratory therapists, all right at his bedside in less than a minute from the collapse — that speaks to that ability that demonstrates that he had good perfusion to his brain that led to no identifiable neurological deficit.”
Dr. Pritts clarified how Hamling was able to communicate with the doctors.
“He did not speak, he was able to communicate in writing, and he is unable to speak with us yet, as he still has a breathing tube in,” Pritts added. “We’re still assisting him with ventilation, so when he was communicating with us last night and again today, that’s been in writing.”
“To paraphrase one of our partners when he asked, ‘did we win?’ The answer is, ‘yes, Damar, you won. You’ve won the game of life,'” Pritts continued.
On Thursday morning, the Bills released the doctor’s statement that Hamlin showed “remarkable improvement.”
According to Seung Min Kim, a White House reporter for the AP, tweeted that the NFL will not resume the game between the Bills and the Bengals.
Watch above via NFL Network.
