NFL Player Damar Hamlin’s Family Says His Heart Had To Be Restarted Twice

The family of Damar Hamlin, the Buffalo Bills safety who collapsed on the field on Monday night, has revealed that the 24-year-old’s heart had to be restarted twice. It was previously reported that Hamlin had to be resuscitated by paramedics while still on the field. However, his uncle, Dorrian Glenn, tells CNN that his nephew’s heart stopped for a second time at the hospital and had to be restarted again.

According to Glenn, Hamlin is being kept under sedation at the moment to allow his body to heal from the trauma it’s been through over the past several days.

“He’s still sedated right now,” Glenn said. “They just want him to have a better chance of recovering better. So, they felt if he was sedated, his body can recover a lot faster than if he was awake and possibly cause other complications.”

Sadly, Damar Hamlin didn’t just suffer heart trouble during the incident. He also sustained lung damage, though Glenn feels confident that his nephew will eventually be able to breathe on his own again. At the moment, Hamlin is said to be using 50% of a ventilator, which is already an improvement from when he was initially hospitalized. He’s also being positioned on his stomach in an effort the place less pressure on his lungs.

Glenn also spoke about the family’s horror of seeing Hamlin go down and not knowing if he would survive.

“We were all in tears,” Glenn recalled. “I’m not a crier, but I’ve never cried so hard in my life. Just to know, like, my nephew basically died on the field and they brought him back to life, that’s just heartbreaking. To see all those grown men crying and all the emotion, it really was a gut punch, man.”

“I would have been crying no matter who it was, but for it to be my nephew, it just had that much more impact on me, man,” he said. “I’m just glad he’s still alive and able to fight and try and get better and recover.”

Jennifer Still is a writer and editor with more than 10 years of experience. The managing editor of Bolde, she has bylines in Vanity Fair, Business Insider, The New York Times, Glamour, Bon Appetit, and many more. You can follow her on Twitter @jenniferlstill
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