In a moment that has been a long time coming for the 25-year-old safety, Damar Hamlin took the field Aug 12 for the Buffalo Bills. Hamiln’s football career, and more importantly his life, hung in the balance in 2022 after a routine tackle during a Monday Night Football game caused him to have a heart attack on the field. In June at the ESPY Awards Show, Hamiln presented the Buffalo Bills training staff with an award. Hamlin was consumed with emotions, in tears as he presented them with the Pat Tillman Award for Service. Just before he presented the award, the crowd at the ceremony gave him a standing ovation before he could even say a word. Hamiln’s journey back represented a significant undertaking on his part, and in a profile feature with Michael Strahan on Dateline, Hamlin opened up about what he said when he first woke up, telling Strahan: “ I wanted to know, like did we win? And he (the doctor in ICU) said yeah I won, I won the game of life.”
Over the next several months, Hamlin’s recovery became something that not just sports media paid attention to, but it became a national story. His doctors called his recovery remarkable and Strahan said that Hamiln’s story has caused a shift in the number of people who have applied for CPR training. To that end, Hamlin partnered with the American Heart Association to create a #3forHeart CPR challenge fundraiser which has raised nearly three million dollars for the organization as well as increased the number of people who know how to administer CPR. Hamlin has maintained throughout his recovery that he intended to return to the game he loves, the game of football, and the capstone of that intention was achieved in a pre-season game against the Indianapolis Colts.
Even though it is only pre-season for most fans of the NFL, for Damar Hamiln it marks the first real test of his intention to continue playing football. Hamlin appeared in 24 snaps of football and recorded 3 tackles, showing a willingness to get involved in the action. His first snap? A big fourth-down stop in the first quarter that helped Buffalo keep the positive momentum they had going. After the game, Hamlin spoke to reporters from USA Today, telling them “It was fun, it was super fun, it was a great experience, just another milestone and a step up to just getting back to myself as far as the football space,” Hamlin said. “Just chopping this tree down as much as I can, one step at a time.”
