On Monday night, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest following a hit during a game against the Cincinatti Bengals.
Before being rushed to University of Cincinnati Medical Center, fans watched as 24-year-old Hamlin received CPR on the field for about nine minutes. In the live taping, ESPN sports broadcasters called the scene and resuscitation efforts on Hamlin "chilling and scary," and noted that first responders were "intensely working on" Hamlin and "frantically administering CPR."
The tense scene that was broadcasted during Monday Night Football and shared widely on social media has since sparked conversation about the importance of CPR, especially as many online expressed their questions and fears over seeing Hamlin receive CPR.
Though it may have been a shocking scene for many to witness, the CPR care given to Hamlin was executed correctly and quickly—and it saved his life.
“This same type of event happens [about] 400,000 times in the United States every year,” Jason Bartos, MD, PhD, associate director of the center for resuscitation medicine at the University of Minnesota. “So in this case, actually, what we see is the best case scenario, where the cardiac arrest is witnessed—in this case by millions of people on television—and the person who has that cardiac arrest has immediate bystander CPR by trained professionals who are on the scene.”
As of late Thursday morning, the Buffalo Bills said that Hamlin "has shown remarkable improvement over the past 24 hours," he seems "neurologically intact," and his lungs are healing—he is still "critically ill," however.
Here’s what we know about Hamlin’s cardiac arrest, why CPR can oftentimes be hard on the body, and why it’s so important to take the time to learn about this life-saving skill.
It’s not yet clear what caused Hamlin’s cardiac arrest, NFL medical personnel administered care and were able to restore his heartbeat after it had stopped on the field, thanks to CPR and the use of an AED.
CPR is usually administered by someone who’s American Red Cross CPR certified, which means they’ve completed training for the specific steps involved in the technique—that can be a trained medical professional, an average person who’s been certified, or just someone who has knowledge about what CPR entails.
“Basically, you have your arms out straight, you interlock your fingers, you use the palm of your hands, you lean over the victim, and you push hard and fast in the center of the chest,” said Dr. Andersen. “You push their sternum down two inches, and you're trying to do that [for] two compressions per second.”
CPR typically consists of 30 of these chest compressions, followed by two rescue breaths given mouth-to-mouth. However, Dr. Andersen explained, in cases where bystanders happen upon someone who’s going into cardiac arrest, simply doing 100–120 chest compressions per minute should be enough to help oxygenated blood move around the body and potentially save their life.
Though CPR can double or triple a person’s chance of survival if given right after cardiac arrest, the technique can be jarring. It's possible that Hamlin’s CPR was the first ever witnessed by many Americans, Dr. Bartos said, which explains why many may have felt shocked or confused.
“It took the general public seeing a 24-year-old man code, go into total asystole on a football field, in the middle of an NFL game, for people to realize that resuscitation is traumatic.
CPR, when done correctly, can seem intense or extreme to those that have little experience with it. Oftentimes, if a person who is not a trained medical professional has to do CPR, they don’t compress the chest forcefully enough, Chris Hogrefe, MD, clinical associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. The people who gave CPR to Hamlin were certainly not trying to hurt him, though watching the process may have seemed almost "barbaric," he said.
"The fact of the matter is CPR is something where ribs break, and bruises happen," said Dr. Hogrefe. "Those things are not uncommon with CPR, particularly in a hospital setting."
He added that, in muscular people or people with bigger bodies, it can be especially hard to move the chest enough for compressions. "Really what they're trying to do is to get that heart to beat the way that it would without that assistance," he said. "And it’s necessary so that you can restore oxygen to the tissues that really need it.”
There’s also the possibility that AEDs can give small injuries to the heart as well, Dr. Bartos added, though for that life-saving machine too, “it’s very much with that risk,” he said.
As alarming and horrific as Hamlin’s cardiac arrest was, experts agree that the budding online discourse about the importance of CPR may be somewhat of a silver lining.
The reason that Hamlin has a chance at recovery is because a huge amount of people witnessed his collapse, and he received CPR and an AED very quickly after his cardiac arrest, Dr. Bicette-McCain explained. But for the average person, that is rarely the case.
“The time-to-CPR is the number one best indicator in terms of what a person’s potential recovery could be from a cardiac arrest,” she said. “So it’s absolutely important that everyone learns CPR.”
People can access CPR certifications through the American Red Cross, which can take place either in person or online. If someone has been certified in the past, it’s also possible to take a refresher course and get re-certified.
If taking a course is inaccessible though, Dr. Andersen explained that just doing a bit of research on your own may be enough to get you through a crisis situation.
“Right now, 360,000 Americans die out of the hospital from sudden cardiac arrest, and 92% die before making it to the hospital, because people don't know what to do. And what to do is so simple,” said Dr. Andersen.
If it has been awhile since you have taken a CPR course are unfamiliar with how to do CPR, I would encourage you to be educated on how to do it. The life you save may be a close friend or loved one. The quicker the CPR is performed the better the chance of survival until professional care can arrive.
Until Next time: Stay Safe, Stay Healthy and be Careful out in the World.
James A Vito, D.M.D.