*(CNN) — After suffering a cardiac arrest during a game on Monday, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin remains in critical condition in intensive care, with “signs of improvement” noted over the past day, his team tweeted early Wednesday afternoon, while uneasy supporters across the nation awaited word of his fate.
“He is expected to remain under intensive care as his health care team continues to monitor and treat him,” the Bills said.
Hamlin, 24, had still been sedated on a ventilator as doctors worked toward getting him to breathe on his own, his uncle Dorrian Glenn told CNN on Tuesday, after Hamlin’s collapse on the field the prior night halted the Bills game against the Cincinnati Bengals, stunning a packed stadium that only moments earlier had been rippling with excitement ahead of Hamlin’s tackle of a Bengals wide receiver.
Hamlin’s heartbeat was restored on the field as staff tended to him, the Bills have said, before he was taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he was still being treated Wednesday. Hamlin was resuscitated only once, a family spokesman clarified Wednesday, not twice, as his uncle told CNN on Tuesday.
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“My nephew basically died on the field and they brought him back to life,” Glenn said Tuesday.
It is still unclear what led to the cardiac arrest. CNN has requested comment from the hospital system, which is not releasing information about Hamlin or providing interviews with his medical staff.
Hamlin is on a ventilator to relieve some of the strain on his lungs, which have been damaged, according to Glenn. The doctors told Glenn his nephew has also been “flipped over on his stomach” in the hospital to help with the blood on his lungs, he said, adding, “It seems like he’s trending upwards in a positive way.”
Hamlin’s cardiac arrest came as the NFL is under scrutiny for how it protects players in an inherently violent game. Hamlin collapsed shortly after a collision in which Higgins tried to power past Hamlin, who’d approached for a tackle, with about six minutes remaining in the first quarter of Monday’s game. Hamlin still twisted Higgins to the ground and stood up — but within seconds fell and lay motionless.
Monday’s contest was postponed with the Bengals leading 7-3, and will not be resumed this week, and no decision has been made on whether to ever continue it, the NFL said Tuesday.
On-field injuries are not uncommon in the league, which often resume play even after severe cases. Many current and former players strongly have supported the game’s postponement, saying Hamlin’s cardiac arrest felt especially disturbing as medical personnel fought to save his life while fans and players looked on.
Fans hold a candlelight prayer service for Hamlin at the UC Medical Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. – (Jeff Dean-Getty Images)
As Hamlin was treated on the field, some players fell to their knees, sent up a prayer or were openly weeping and embracing one another. Bills offensive tackle Dion Dawkins realized the gravity of his teammate’s condition when Hamlin stayed on the ground as more and more medical staff were called over, he said.
“In that moment, you’re just thinking like, ‘What can I do? What can we do?’ And it just immediately breaks you down into prayer,” Dawkins told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday. “Whether you’re a believer or not, only a higher power can really take control of what is next. And our people that help also assisted that higher power.”
The incident marks the latest in a series of tragic blows for the Buffalo community, which in the past few months has endured a racist mass shooting and a historic blizzard that left at least 41 people dead in Erie County, New York. “It has been, you know, just (a) constant beating for Buffalo,” Dawkins said.
A swell of support has surrounded Hamlin and his family as messages of prayers and well wishes have flooded in from star athletes, fans and national leaders. A fundraiser that Hamlin previously had started for his Chasing M’s Foundation toy drive has raised more than $6 million since his hospitalization.
At a prayer service for the player Tuesday night, community members described the heartbreak of watching “one of our own” endure such a crisis.
“All you can do right now is pray for Damar: the man, not the football player, not the Buffalo Bill, but the person,” the city’s poet laureate Jillian Hanesworth said. “He has to pull through.”
What doctors may be thinking
Cardiac arrest results from electrical disturbances that cause the heart to suddenly stop beating properly, and death can occur quickly if help isn’t rendered immediately. It is not the same as a heart attack or heart failure.
When the heart is not beating well, fluid can sometimes back up into the lungs and make it hard for medical staff to oxygenate the patient, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta explained. So, they flip the person on their stomach into a prone position to make breathing easier.
The prone position “is used only when it is very difficult to oxygenate, or move gases in and out through the lungs,” which can happen when fluid backs up in the lungs because the heart isn’t functioning well, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a cardiologist and director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory at George Washington University Hospital, said Tuesday.
It sounded Tuesday evening like Hamlin still was having a significant amount of cardiac dysfunction and his heart not pumping enough blood, Gupta told CNN’s Anderson Cooper at the time. A treatment option would be to decrease the body’s demand for oxygenated blood, he said.
“So, you want to improve the amount of circulation, but in the interim, you can also decrease the demand by sedating somebody, by keeping them on a breathing machine,” he said. “Sometimes they’ll even use cooling agents, hypothermia it’s called, to basically almost put the body in more of a hibernation-like state so it’s not demanding as much oxygenated blood. That’s part of the reason he would be on a breathing machine as well.”
Hamlin was resuscitated just once after his collapse, his family’s spokesperson said Wednesday. Glenn, the player’s uncle, misspoke when he told CNN and ESPN the prior day that Hamlin had been resuscitated twice, spokesperson Jordon Rooney said.
“There’s a lot of medical jargon, a lot of things being said, so Damar’s only been resuscitated once,” Rooney, Hamlin’s friend and marketing representative, said Wednesday, speaking on behalf of the family.
“His uncle’s incredibly supportive of his of his nephew. … I think that, you know, he just wanted to do his part to share some good news, and I think just misspoke,” Rooney said.
The family has said it is grateful for all the support it has received, including from the hospital, fans and the NFL community.
“(They are) incredibly thankful of everything that has been out there, all of the support that they’ve gotten. It’s made this just a little bit easier for them,” Rooney said Wednesday. “They’re very grateful people, and it’s meant a lot to them.”
Higgins, the receiver involved in the collision that preceded Hamlin’s collapse, has reached out to Hamlin’s family and been supportive, Rooney said.
‘This is a brutal sport. I think people forget that’
Several star athletes — including tennis player Coco Gauff, the NFL’s JJ Watt and NBA legend LeBron James — have applauded the NFL’s decision to postpone the game and have emphasized the importance of Hamlin’s safe recovery over the game’s outcome
Former NFL player Donté Stallworth said the league’s decision to postpone the game wouldn’t have happened years ago. “Five, 10 years ago, the game probably would have resumed,” he told CNN’s Jim Sciutto on Tuesday.
“I don’t know if you can make the game any much safer,” he said. “This is a brutal sport. I think people forget that. They look at players more as commodities sometimes, especially with fantasy football.
“Sometimes we forget the human side, that these players are actually human beings and they have families and they have wives and kids,” he added, pointing out that Hamlin’s “mother was there witnessing this with her own eyes.”
Dawkins was relieved and grateful that his team did not have to continue playing, he said.
“The fact that we did not have to go back out there on that field and play just shows that there is care, and that’s all we can ever ask for is that we get treated as people,” he said. “Because most people just treat us as athletes, as superstars, and some people like celebrities, but in that moment they treated us like people.”
Bills players and staff are still processing Monday night’s events, a source within the team told CNN’s Coy Wire on Tuesday.
The continued shock of Hamlin’s hospitalization — on top of the city’s mass shooting in May, deadly December blizzard, having a home game in November moved to Detroit and getting stuck in Chicago during the holidays — has been heavy on everyone associated with the club, the source said.
“Everyone is exhausted,” the source told Wire, adding that the team’s flight back to New York didn’t land until 3:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday.
This story has been updated to reflect the number of times Hamlin was resuscitated based on information from a family spokesperson and his uncle.
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