Member-only story
I Need the Right Wing to Leave Damar Hamlin Alone.
And leave his teammates alone as well.
Monday night football on January 2nd, 2023 is going to stay with me for a while, and I’m sure a lot of other people who were watching as well when Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field, going into cardiac arrest and requiring immediate CPR. For nine minutes athletic trainers and paramedics pounded on the chest of this 24 year old healthy young man as his teammates watched in horror and his mother looked on helplessly from the stands. His uncle would later tell ESPN that the screams and cries coming from Damar’s seven year old baby brother as they saw it unfold on TV is something he’s never going to forget.
I don’t know how I’ll forget seeing Tre White crying into the shoulders of his teammates, Siran Neal full on sobbing, Stef Diggs kneeling in silence with tears streaming down his cheeks, or the look on Josh Allen’s face as he wiped his own eyes that told us he had seen something he would never be able to unsee. It was a look that made it clear to all those watching that these men were going through trauma on prime time television with tens of millions of people watching, and it moved me to tears.
Thankfully, incredibly, as we all know, Damar Hamlin made it. Not only that, but the first thing he asked when he woke up as he…
