Real evidence for widespread American unity

I don't know if the Damar Hamlin event has been mentioned in this forum. I don't know how many or what proportion of participants here have any interest in pro football. Regardless, the events surrounding Hamlin's MNF injury during a routine play and the subsequent response of medical first responders, teammates, opposing team, and essentially the country as a whole says a little something about our core humanity and about a unified response that transcends a silly football game. It's perplexing how sports can occasionally bring folks together. I just surmized that the entirety of this whole scenario was a bit inspiring and perhaps makes us think about / concentrate on core issues that are far beyond the routine and often petty conflicts we all engage in on a daily basis. A lot of good emerged from this event, imo...including Hamlin's ongoing daily improvement now. It just makes for a good reality novel, overall..imo. 

Speaking of petty behavior,  I'd ask those so inclined to get on their knees and pray for a Cowboys victory today. Amen.

First of all, I'm a Niners fan. So, go away Cowboys.

While I agree that the Hamlin story is, uh, something...how many thousands of people's hearts stopped that day? Were they close enough to medical attention that they could be revived? How many were able to call for help? How many survived?

I'm just saying...if yer heart's gonna stop, there are worse places for it to happen than in front of 50,000 people and within instant reach of a staff of paramedics with access to the latest resuscitation equipment.

Buffalo, NY native here.     The feedback I hear from all my friends and family in Western New York has been a feeling of love and support from the whole country - even our Arch-Nemesis, Miami.   And thats greatly appreciatted in a city that experienced a mass shooting earlier this year,   and  a generational blizzard in December, and then the tragedy on the field in Cincinati.

Now they just need to win the big one.

That's all true..re: other people's daily calamities. My point was / is that this Hamlin event in some ways forces us all to think about those alternate plights, conditions, and subsequent consequences. Absolutely, Hamlin's event was blatantly fortuitous simply because of where it occurred...most don't have such access in a critical life/death situation. Nobody would argue with that. The untold number of people who experience a similar event wouldn't have such good fortune. Yet, the response of a good segment of at least the domestic population regardless of the circumstances maybe encourages us to consider humanity in a different light..hopefully beyond Monday. That response was a main point of the original post...and remains a good thing despite the fact that it emanated from an entertainment event that was infinitely more visible to a greater number of people than that associated with some guy in an alley somewhere.

You're a Niners fan. That explains a lot. Now we have more to historically and currently argue about, unfortunately. In spite of that, good luck in the playoffs..until any potential Cowboys vs Niners game ensues.

If so, I'll be on ya like a petty pair of velcro sheep chaps.

True, Buffalo ( the team and the community as a whole) has experienced more than their typically allotted share of crap to endure this past year. I'm a big fan of Josh Allen ( and I was a fan long before the current event took place)..that guy epitomizes grit. He's fun toi watch, and I wish him and his team ( including Coach McDermott who showed some great leadership during this entire thing) the best going forward. I fully admit that if by some fate that the Cowboys meet the Bills in the Big Game, I'll be conflicted a bit as a viewer. Further, if the Cowboys are eliminated along the way ( which is 100% in line with their recent 27 year history), I'll be fully behind the Bills throughout. I think much of the viewing public will and should be.

What tragedy? In particular, if Hamlin has a heart condition, it manifesting itself when and where it did was a tremendous stroke of good luck.

There are people in cardiac wards all over the country who aren't receiving tens of thousands of well wishes. And very few of them chose a profession where you routinely smash yourself against others who weigh as much as you do. Bottom line, he got injured. No huge surprise, and certainly not a tragedy.

Let's not fade to melodrama because the guy's an NFL player. We already elevated a former NFL star to senatorial candidate because...he was an NFL star? Our society is seriously out of whack re who and what really matters.

The above is why I nicknamed kevin LAM (Little Angry Man).  No matter what issue, all his posts exhibit an unusual amount of anger 

And the above statement, as well as virtually everything else he posts, led me to anoint him Stupid Tommie-poo. He talks, and more importantly thinks, like a child. And speaking of anger issues--this is his thirtieth or so post that's nothing but a personal attack. Something about my existence stirs up the true sicko portion of his psyche.

Well, let's just say Kevin often takes the devil's advocate side of issues.  I'm sure lots of moms have told their kids "you take the bad with the good."  Kevin is good at stirring the pot, pointing out the 'wrong' side of even something positive.  No doubt he is as happy as anyone that the FB player's condition is improving.  That young man will still have a long way to go, not to mention probably no more football/career.  Hope I'm wrong.

Changing topics:  I'm old enough to appreciate the progress of cardiac resuscitation.  I can't recall exact stats, but I'm a retired nurse.  In-hospital resuscitation successs (to hospital discharge) following cardiac arrest (CA) has been (and still is) pretty dismal though improved slightly along the way with the development of "code teams", bedside defibrillation, training, etc. 

Consider the time it took to recognize (or find) patient in CA, get the crash cart (usually down the hall or in another room), get the patient in position for CPR, have somebody call the code team; usually 1-2 or more minutes before the team arrived, CPR started by whomever was present, etc.

I recall the dreaded yearly required CPR class for personnel.  Maybe it was every 2 years.  Anyway it had always changed from training year to year...how fast for compressions, how many breaths between how many compressions, and God forbid if your Resusci-Annie printed out the heart rhythm during the process.  If you didn't get it just right (that P,Q,R,S,T) you did it until.  We'd leave the class with swollen purple lips having to repeat compressions breaths until done right, especially one-rescuer CPR.  

Our dialysis patients were mostly in reclining chairs during their treatments, so imagine the effort to lift one from the chair ('dead' weight) up and onto a stretcher or bed, because CPR in a reclining chair is almost futile...need to get them flat and preferably on a board.  And moving to another room out of the sight of all other patients who of course would be upset at the site of their colleague/patient going down.  Thinking back, we almost always got them back to a beating heart, probably because we were right there, usually witnessed the patient going down, moved quickly, had oxygen available, etc.  And on to the ICU after being stabalized, for further care, but all that didn't nearly guarantee survival to discharge from the hospital...very low stats.

Bystander CPR (outside the care facility)...forget about it...UNTIL it was understood why bystander was almost hopeless, partly because bystanders, even if they knew there was such a thing as CPR they were loathe to try, even if somebody had training, since 'proper' CPR involved coordination of compressions/mouth to mouth...and AIDS on peoples' minds, if nobody knew the victim's history.   

The cardiac experts eventually figured out that a victim had a much better chance (not great, but better) if just compressions by themselves were started immediately, NO mouth to mouth, the futility of the compression/mouth to mouth rhythm, especially by bystanders...lots of compression time lost that could get some blood to the brain.  If the stars lined up help might arrive soon, especially since now folks have cell phones and everybody calls 911...a fact supporting Charles' point...people do care about each other, even strangers, in times of trouble.  They want to help if they can.   Actually I attempted it on a man in front of me (a big elderly man) in a theater-type situation (Oaklawn Race track, inside seating), leaped over the row of people and chairs to get to him and beg people to help me drag him to the stair step-type aisle with maybe four feet of flat concrete every 5-6 steps, where I did the best I could, compressions and mouth to mouth, until EMTs arrived, which was like 15 minutes or more.  Actually he vomited on me, probably aspirated.  I'm sure he didn't make it, too long before good help.  But I happened to see him collapse, and I couldn't just sit there.

So bystander CPR, compressions only, was taught in our classes even though in the hospital it was expected to do both since masks became available to protect the person doing the breathing.  Compressions are more accepted by bystanders.  And more effective...at least get some blood to the brain and other parts.

AEDs absolutely can make a big difference,  IF located quickly, compressions already begun, etc.  The thing talks to you, no doubt about what to do when once the patches are in place.  The patches show where to place them, front and back of the torso.

Sorry, this is too long, but sure enough the NLF player was lucky...witnessess and trained people around and the AED.

Candy

Candy, that's the point I was trying to make. It's melodramatic and unfair to paint this incident as a "tragedy" and all the other hyperbolic terms the media have used, when the proper reaction should have been something like, "Well, it's a good thing this happened when he was within easy reach of expert emergency medical attention instead of, say, at three in the morning in his hotel room." (Of course, we don't know whether this was a one-off--the tackle hit him in precisely the wrong place--or an exposure of a serious and up to that point, hidden condition.)

Oh, and by the way, if it ends up that he can no longer play football, he has excellent disability insurance from his employer (all NFL players do, as part of their contracts). Not everyone who has to quit their job because of cardiac or other medical issues has such a safety net.

I'm curious why anyone thinks I was pointing out the "wrong side" by indicating Hamlin's extremely good fortune, but I realize that a LOT of criticism gets thrown at me reflexively here, such as Tom's unthinkingly hostile (and STOOPID) reaction.