Damar Hamlin: Cardiac arrest explained
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Buffalo Bill safety Damar Hamlin remains in Intensive care after going into cardiac arrest mid-game on Monday night. It took about 10 min for doctors to restore his hearth beat then placing him on defibrillator before transporting him to the University of Cincinnati medical center.
On Wednesday morning doctors told family members that his condition is moving in a positive direction and that they are working to get him breathing without a ventilator. The cause of the cardiac arrest has not been made public yet but cardiologist says it can be caused by several factors.
Catherine Benziger, MD from Essentia Health says ”What people have been talking about that may have happened to him and that can happen to like baseball players is when they get hit with a ball really hard. If the trauma hits at the exact right time. There’s something called Commotio Cordis. And it’s just a blunt trauma to the chest without any chest trauma, without, you know, having any rib fractures or anything.
It’s just that that hit at the right time can cause the heart to also go into one of these funny rhythms.”
Experts say minute matters when it comes to cardiac arrest because the longer somebody is without blood flow to the hearth and to the brain the more damage starts to happen in the body. Also, age is not a factor as cardiac arrest is more linked to individual condition and survival rates are lower than people think.
”In reality, the number is somewhere between 15% and 20% of people who suffer cardiac arrest will survive to hospital discharge.”
Following Damar Hamlin cardiac arrest incident in Cincinnati medial expert talks about the condition and survival rate.
She says in other to prevent cardiac arrest it is important to know about your family history and talk to your doctor. She also added that learning how to perform CPR can save lives.
”So I think everybody needs to get trained in CPR and it’s a Minnesota State High School graduation requirement that everybody learn CPR, and everybody could save a life.”
The game was halted and then suspended indefinitely after the incident and there has been no decision yet by the NFL on whether the game will be continued at a later date.