INDIANAPOLIS — When Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field Monday night, it was scary for everyone who was watching. It also had people wondering what caused such a catastrophic health scare.
We still don't know for sure, but doctors say one rare emergency condition is highly likely.
During that frightening scene, as Hamlin suddenly collapsed, #MedTwitter lit up with doctors discussing what could cause a strong, young athlete to suffer cardiac arrest after a tackle?
"One condition a lot of experts are looking at is something called commotio cordis," said NBC News senior medical correspondent Dr. John Torres.
Dr. Eric Krivitsky, a cardiologist and electrophysiologist specializing in heart rhythm abnormalities at Franciscan Health, agreed that is the most probable cause.
"Where the hit was delivered and the way he passed out afterward, it makes you just think immediately of an entity called commotio cordis," Krivitsky said. "It's very, very rare. It's a one-in-a-million shot."
Krivitsky said commotio cordis is a disruption to the heart's electrical cycle caused by a blow to the chest that leads to life-threatening cardiac arrest. It requires a perfect storm of trauma and timing: a direct hit, just as the heart resets its rhythm.
"The heart's electrical system has a cycle. And there's a vulnerable period of this cycle — vulnerable meaning if anything happens during this period, the heart can go into a dangerous, life-threatening arrhythmia. In his case, it's trauma to the chest happening at just the exact wrong time that leads to this arrhythmia," Krivitsky said. "It's the exact wrong moment."
Commotio cordis has only happened about 200 times nationwide since the mid-1990s. Sometimes it occurs in youth baseball or hockey athletes, after getting hit by a ball or puck in the chest. It can often be deadly. But in this case, if this is the cause (again, Hamlin's doctors have not revealed an exact diagnosis), experts are optimistic. That is mainly because Hamlin got CPR right away.
"There was an ambulance standing by. He had high-quality CPR delivered almost immediately by paramedics," Krivitsky explained, "and by high quality, I mean chest compressions given to the proper depth as well as the proper rate. And he had a shock, a defibrillation, a shock to his heart within 10 minutes."
"Getting that CPR there, that timing of getting it there is extremely important," Torres said. "So having CPR on hand, having those defibrillators on hand is what saved his life."