A blow in question
Also known as “cardiac concussion”, this is a reaction that can exceptionally occur when an individual receives a shock to the heart at the wrong time in the cardiac cycle, causing it to spontaneously stop. Rather rare, this phenomenon can occur in baseball, for example, when a ball hits a player’s chest. In Damar Hamlin’s case, the hit allegedly happened when he made a routine tackle on Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins. “We know that there was a blow to the chest, we know that he had a cardiac arrest afterwards, but is it really linked? It looks like that, but we can’t be 100% certain,” says Alain Vadeboncœur.
Pre-existing condition?
Did Damar Hamlin have a pre-existing condition? After all, violent beatings are very common in football and yet spontaneous cardiac arrests do not happen every week. Impossible to say for the moment, says Alain Vadeboncœur, who does not however exclude this hypothesis. “There are genetic conditions, which are often unsuspected, which make the hearts more sensitive to arrhythmias, and so that is a possibility, but we do not know yet”, explains the emergency doctor, specifying that the Damar Hamlin’s heart will most likely undergo all the necessary examinations before he returns to the game.
PHOTO SAM GREENE, USA TODAY SPORTS
Buffalo Bills players, looked around Damar Hamlin, as an ambulance arrives on the field
What are the possible damages?
Such a cardiac arrest means that the brain no longer receives blood, and this, very quickly, explains Alain Vadeboncœur. This would be the reason why Damar Hamlin, who remained conscious seconds after the shock, collapsed shortly after. The long-term consequences for the safety are yet to be determined. He quickly received medical treatment on the stadium lawn, for about twenty minutes, before being rushed to a hospital in the area.
Will he recover?
Tuesday evening, Damar Hamlin was still in an induced coma and his condition was considered critical, according to what the Buffalo Bills said. “To what extent has the brain been damaged, irreversible or not? Lots of people will come out of it without any sequelae and in this case, obviously, the intervention was done very quickly, “says the Dr Vadeboncoeur. The time between cardiac arrest and resuscitation is critical, because for each second that the brain is deprived of blood, the risk of suffering irreversible damage increases, indicates Alain Vadeboncœur. “Beyond 10 or 15 minutes, it starts to get long. The other organs are very resistant to this kind of thing, but the brain suffers immediately,” he says.
Rare phenomenon and great bad luck
According to Alain Vadeboncœur, the cases of commotio cordis are extremely rare. In Quebec, for example, the number of cases in a year “must be counted on the fingers of your hands”. According to a scientific article shared by the expert on Twitter, only about thirty cases are listed each year in the United States among young athletes. “If the blow happens at any other time, there may or may not be physical damage, but no arrhythmia. It therefore takes great bad luck for such a blow to actually cause an arrhythmia”, indicates the emergency physician.
power to act
Beyond the fear caused by the tragedy that affected Damar Hamlin, this situation demonstrates the importance of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) courses in order to be able to intervene in such situations, believes Alain Vadeboncœur. “CPR is used to buy the minutes required to bring the automatic defibrillator, as there are now in many public places and systematically in this kind of stadium,” he explains.