Buffalo Bills’ Damar Hamlin Talks Recovery and Trauma From Cardiac Arrest: It “Could Have Been the Last of Me”

In an emotional sit-down interview, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin discussed his physical and emotional recovery after suffering cardiac arrest in the first quarter of the Jan. 2 NFL game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Speaking with Good Morning America‘s Michael Strahan, the 24-year-old professional football player opened up about the incident, which saw him hospitalized after collapsing on the field following a hit, something Hamlin said he was told “could have been the last of me.”

“I’m just thankful [God] gave me a second chance just to live normally and just come out almost without a scratch on me,” Hamlin said. “Just to be able to keep going.”

While Hamlin says he’s physically doing great, he’s still working through the emotional trauma of the experience. “I’m still trying to process all the emotions and the trauma that comes from dealing with a situation like that and not really having people around or no one in my immediate circle who’s dealt with something like that.”

As for the details around what physically happened — including what may have caused the cardiac arrest — Hamlin said it’s “something I want to stay away from.” He did, however, say that he’s “always been a healthy, young, fit, energetic” athlete and that he and his team are “still processing” and “talking to my doctors just to see what everything was.”

When asked whether he remembered the moments right before his collapse, he declined to speak to it, citing it as “something I don’t really want to get deep into.” As for whether Hamlin has watched video of his medical emergency, the NFL player said he has once or twice while in the ICU. The experience left him with a “crazy feeling” and it’s something that he can’t “watch too much.”

“[It’s] something I can’t even describe yet; something I’m still processing; something I’m still trying to work through,” he said. “Why’d it happen to me?”

While Hamlin says he is still mentally processing what happened to him and awaiting answers from his medical team, he expressed his appreciation for Denny Kellington, the assistant athletic trainer for the Bills who performed CPR on the player immediately after he collapsed.

“I owe Denny my life,” Hamlin told GMA. “He loves to say he was just doing his job, which is true, you know? And that night, he was literally the savior of my life.”

After collapsing on the Paycor Stadium field, Hamlin was given CPR and taken by ambulance to a Cincinnati hospital, where he was admitted to the intensive care unit before waking up and spending three days on a ventilator. He was eventually released from the hospital one week after he was admitted, his recovery previously described by his doctors as “remarkable.”

As for his potential return to the field, Hamlin described it as “a tough situation” that he was told “was up to me.”

“They can’t really tell,” he said of his health team’s prognosis. “It’s a long road and they’re just worried about trying to get me back to normal as much as they can.”