The NFL is investigating each potential trigger behind the cardiac arrest of Buffalo Payments security Damar Hamlin, which resulted in his collapse mid-game towards the Cincinnati Bengals, in line with the NFL’s chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills.
“I do know there’s been quite a lot of theories and quite a lot of dialogue about commotio cordis, and that definitely is feasible,” Sills stated Wednesday on a press name.
Commotio cordis occurs when extreme trauma to the chest disrupts the guts’s electrical cost, inflicting harmful fibrillations.
Sills stated it’s a analysis of exclusion, that means it could be the analysis if medical doctors don’t discover another causes.
“You must have the correct sort of blow hitting on the proper spot on the chest with the correct amount of drive at simply the correct time in that cardiac cycle. So quite a lot of issues should line up for that to occur,” Sills stated.
Medical doctors will search for any potential congenital or different abnormalities with Hamlin’s coronary heart, he stated. Each participant will get a bodily earlier than every season, and medical doctors take an in depth medical historical past, which incorporates American Coronary heart Affiliation screening tips associated to potential cardiac points.
Sills stated any time a participant is evacuated from the sector, the NFL and its medical specialists do an in depth evaluate of what occurred. They can even look particularly on the function of protecting tools.
“I believe that’s one thing that definitely we wish to have a look at,” he stated. “We do know that padding over the sternum will be protecting to blows in conditions the place commotio cordis is a consideration, so that’s one thing that definitely will likely be mentioned.”
At the moment, gamers’ shoulder pads usually slot in an space that covers the sternum, he stated.
Sills stated that in some instances, the medical staff will be unable to find out what brought on the issue.
Whatever the trigger, what helped on this scenario was that the NFL had the correct folks and tools in place to supply “an especially speedy response,” he stated.”
