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A pair of UC Health Physicians spoke via a Zoom call for nearly an hour on Thursday afternoon, detailing the status of Bills safety Damar Hamlin, who has made “substantial improvement in his condition over the past 24 hours”.
Among those improvements include Hamlin being awake and responsive with the ability to move both his hands and feet, while also being able to communicate with his doctors, nurses and family members via writing on a clipboard. More, Hamlin’s neurological condition and function is intact after suffering cardiac arrest on Monday night.
Hamlin remains in intensive care in the surgical and trauma ICU room at the University of Cincinnati hospital, according to UC Health physicians William Knight IV, MD and Timothy Pritts, MD who were on the Zoom call and are part of the many individuals at the hospital helping treat Hamlin. He is still intubated to assist with breathing and the next hurdle in his recovery process is to progress to breathing on his own, according to both doctors.
“It’s not only that the lights are on. We know that he’s home. It appears all the cylinders are firing within his brain,” Dr. Pritts said.
When Hamlin awoke Wednesday night, one of his first questions he asked via writing was who won the Bills-Bengals game. Doctors told him, “You won. You’ve won the game of life.”
Both Dr. Pritts and Dr. Knight detailed the life-saving measures the Bills training staff took Monday night on the field in Cincinnati to ensure Hamlin could receive care at the hospital.
“The Bills training staff who was with him immediately recognized that this was not a run of the mill injury and that they had a significant event on their hands and immediately responded and got the emergency response team involved in his care. And really, this went as well as something like this could go under very challenging circumstances, and they did a fantastic job which is why we’re here today,” Dr. Pritts said.
One of the many members of the Bills training staff who stepped up was Bills assistant athletic trainer Denny Kellington who administered CPR to Hamlin on the field. Both doctors confirmed that when Hamlin collapsed on the field, he had a pulse and then lost it, which is why the decision for the Bills staff to perform CPR was made.
“Not just saving his life, but his neurologic function. The reason why we’re talking about his recovery of neurologic function is the true critical importance of immediate and good and high-quality CPR and immediate access to the defibrillation,” Dr. Knight said.
Since awaking in the hospital Wednesday night, Hamlin has held “many people’s hands” as he continues to show improvement throughout Thursday.
Dr. Pritts and Dr. Knight both said that the next step in Hamlin’s recovery is showing he can fully breathe on his own and continuing to demonstrate sound neurological condition and function.
A best case scenario is getting him back to the health level he was at before the game.
“The best is getting him to the way he was at 8 o’clock on Monday evening. Is completely neurologically intact, strong, good lung function, no cardiac dysfunction with his heart. The best outcome would be back to who he was before this all happened,” Dr. Knight said.
This story will continue to be updated.
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