Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin has been cleared by doctors to participate in the team’s voluntary training program approximately four months after suffering cardiac arrest and being resuscitated on the field for a game against the Cincinnati Bengals, general manager Brandon Beane announced Tuesday.
“He’s been given the go-ahead by the doctors to return to action,” Beane said, adding he lacked team approval after the player spoke with a third and final specialist last Friday.
Beane said the three specialists concluded that Hamlin could return to sport without fear of relapse or complication. The Bills admitted that their own doctor attended Hamlin’s meetings with the specialists, but Beane added that the team followed the recommendations of medical professionals.
Hamlin has made an extraordinary recovery, doctors reported, since collapsing on the field after making a routine tackle in the first quarter of the Jan. 2 game against the Bengals. This match was eventually interrupted, then canceled altogether.
The player from McKee’s Rock, a suburb of Pittsburgh, was hospitalized for nearly 10 days in Cincinnati and Buffalo before being discharged. He then toured the Bills facilities and watched their playoff game — which ended in a 27-10 loss to the Bengals.
Since then, Hamlin has made several public appearances across the United States, including during a meeting with US President Joe Biden last month. He also took part in the festivities surrounding the Super Bowl in February in Arizona, where he won the Alan Page Trophy awarded by the NFL Players Association. And he took part in a pre-game ceremony where the NFL paid tribute to the Bills and Bengals medical staff and first responders who came to the rescue of the 24-year-old.
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