Damar Hamlin

It's been less than 24 hours since we witnessed it, yet we are all still in a stunned state of shock. On Monday Night Football, the Cincinnati Bengals and the Buffalo Bills faced off in a pivotal game for playoff positioning, but during the first quarter, the importance shifted to something much, much, much more important than the entire sport.

During a play late in the first quarter, Bills safety Damar Hamlin delivered a tackle on Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins. After the play was over, Hamlin rose up on his feet, but suddenly collapsed afterwards. I'm going to be completely honest, the game was one of two things I was watching at once, so I didn't fully pay attention to what happened. All I know is I saw a bunch of players huddling together, and there was a lot of worry among them. I thought it was just a terrible injury, because that is usually the case when there's a moderately long pause in the action.

I hate that I was wrong about this, because if I was right, the injury means he'd be up and about soon. This...was far, far worse.

So I learned via social media that moment that CPR had to be performed, and I actually did see that Hamlin was placed in an ambulance. This is where the emotional shaking entered; not just myself, but everyone watching. I still, as I'm writing this, floored by what I watched last night. It was a frightening occurrence. A human being actually collapsed. And yes, ladies and gentlemen, that's exactly what Damar Hamlin is: a human being. We tend to forget that when it comes to sports. We watch these athletes and consider them as something close to superhuman or superheroic. But at the end of they day, they are human beings. And they go through the same problems that the rest of the nearly eight billion people in this world go through.

Cardiac arrest. That's what happened to Hamlin. An AED (automated external defibrillator) was used on Hamlin prior to his hospitalization, and as of this writing, Hamlin's in critical condition. Late that night, I did some homework on Hamlin, because I wanted to know more about him. He was born on March 24, 1998 in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, which is just 15 miles from Pittsburgh. Collegiately, he played football for the University of Pittsburgh (the Panthers), and he was drafted by the Bills in the 2021 NFL draft. Hamlin didn't get a lot of playing time in 2021, but due to Micah Hyde's injury this year, Hamlin ended up starting games this year--13 of them, including the Monday game against Cincinnati.

I myself am still thinking about last night. I found myself thinking about Jay Bouwmeester, the former NHL player who collapsed during a game nearly three years prior. Both cases were similar: a cardiac arrest. Thankfully, Bouwmeester ended up recovering, and everyone is hoping and praying that the same happens with Hamlin. He has been in all of the thoughts of every fan and literally every sports team (not just in the NFL).

Speaking of the NFL, they postponed the game, though they shouldn't have had to take so long to do it. I assure you, the last thing that everyone at the stadium even thought of was continuing to play. The latest update on the game stated that it would not be resumed later in the week, and as of this writing, no changes have been announced for Week 18. None of that is important, though. The important thing is Damar Hamlin. The important thing is hoping for Hamlin to recover. And the important thing to consider in all of this is the humanity surrounding this story, not the sport of football, because there are so many more important things than football (or any sport).