Breaking News:
Buffalo Bills’ safety Damar Hamlin’s breathing tube was removed overnight.
Thursday’s Breaking News:
The University of Cincinnati Medical Center doctors held a news conference on Thursday to update the condition of Damar Hamlin, the Buffalo Bills’ safety who suffered cardiac arrest during Monday’s game.
Doctors said Hamlin was awake, able to move his hands and feet, and able to communicate on Wednesday night, asking who won the game by writing on a notepad.
“We know that he’s home and that it appears that all the cylinders are firing within his brain,” Dr. Pritts said. “Which is greatly gratifying for all of us for the nurses and respiratory therapists and caregivers as for his family and for everybody else beyond.”
Doctors could not answer what caused the cardiac arrest and said “tests will continue to be ongoing as he continues to progress.”
From the press conference:
As of this morning, he is beginning to awaken and it appears that his neurological condition and function is intact. We are proud to report that, very happy for him and for his family and for the Buffalo Bills organization, that he is making improvement. He continues to be critically ill and continues to undergo intensive care in our surgical and trauma ICU. He’s being cared for by ICU neurocritical care teams, trauma surgery and a cardiology team, as well as our expert nurses and respiratory therapists. They are attending to him and he still has significant progress that he needs to make, but this marks a really good turning point in his ongoing care.
Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest on the field and was promptly resuscitated. It did require CPR and defibrillation and was transported to University of Cincinnati Medical Center.
Was there a second resuscitation?
He received one defibrillation and one round of CPR that was on the field. He did not receive second defibrillation or additional CPR once he was in the ambulance or at the hospital.
He initially had a pulse on the field and then lost it under the nose of the physicians and the team that was with him, so he had truly immediate bystander CPR and then a defibrillation happened within several minutes as well.
What’s next?
Doctors want to see him continue to breathe more on his own, and then get him breathing completely on his own.
We sort of view the ventilator as an aid for him as he needs it. And so after the initial event, we were supporting him on the ventilator 100 percent. What our goal really for liberation from mechanical ventilation is to gradually decrease the amount of support and let him pick up the difference. When we reach 0 percent support, breathing tube comes out and we define that as success.
USA Today had an extensive transcript of the press conference.