BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — After witnessing Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin go into cardiac arrest on Monday night, many started asking if this is something that can happen again, and question the safety of athletes in sports.
“A blunt force to the chest at just the right time in the cardiac cycle, the heart is vulnerable as it’s recovering from the previous beat and it can send it into what we call ventricular fibrillation which is deadly heart rhythm,” said Dr. Salvo.
Dr. Salvo, a cardiac electrophysiologist at Kern Cardiac Institute, says sometimes ventricular fibrillation will stop on its own, but in some situations, you will need to intervene to restore rhythm, and that is what happened to Bills player Damar Hamlin.
“External defibrillation or sometimes internal defibrillation are how we resuscitate a patient and stop that deadly heart rhythm and that’s really the only thing you can do at that point to definitively correct the situation,” said Dr. Salvo.
The incident on Monday night has also caused concern for the safety of athletes in sports, but coaches say they should not worry with all the training they have received on CPR, and how to use an automated external defibrillator.
“We are trained in sudden cardiac arrest where the heart does go to defib and what you need to do and the plan you need to have in order to make sure that you can administer the CPR and the help for your athlete in the timely manner that it needs to happen,” said Shafter Head Football Coach Jerald Pierucci.
As far as changing the rules, and modifying the padding for football players, Pierucci says he is not sure there is more that can be done.
“Can you protect against everything in a sport that’s meant to be a violent sport and I think it’s no, but what we can do is make sure that like I said we as coaches, players understand the situation and we can diagnose and get help immediately on the scene,” said Pierucci.
Dr. Salvo says that the incident that happened on Monday night is something that we rarely see in the sport of football.
“It has to be timed just right that the hit has to be on the chest at just the right time. It’s actually, believe it or not, more common, I think lacrosse is the top sport followed by hockey and then baseball,” said Dr. Salvo.
Dr. Salvo also says that as far as the covid vaccine causing Damar Hamlin to be more susceptible to defibrillation there is no science behind that, and it was just an unfortunate accident.
