BOISE, Idaho — With the News of Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin's collapse during Monday night's NFL game, fans and players from across the world started sharing their thoughts and prayers for the 24-year-old who remains in the ICU.
The event sparked a larger conversation about health in sports, especially in football.
Saint Alphonsus cardiologist, Dr. Matthew Nelson, told Idaho News 6 that he cannot speculate on the exact problem that Hamlin is dealing with, but based on his observation and experience he thinks it could have been a rare heart problem.
“We don’t want to diagnose him without doing testing," Nelson said. "But, there are things he could’ve been born with there are genetic conditions that could’ve caused this. But just the mechanism of what happened to him getting hit in the chest by the runner with the football tells me that this probably was Commotio Cordis.”
Commotio Cordis is a disruption in the rhythm of the heart due to blunt trauma to the chest area.
Soon after Hamlin collapsed, medical emergency personnel attended to the athlete. Eventually, they started performing CPR, something that could have kept oxygen going to a victim's brain.
“When you push down on the heart," said Nelson. "That squeeze of the heart pumps blood down to the body and allows blood to continue to flow with oxygen in it to help preserve the brain so you don’t get brain damage and you can keep the organs of the body alive."
Nelson says that immediate CPR is very important for increasing a victim's chance of survival.
