Chiefs share emotions after Damar Hamlin injury: ‘I was praying for him all night’
While watching television Monday night, Kansas City Chiefs safety Juan Thornhill said he viewed a few replays before realizing that Bills safety Damar Hamlin did not hit his head before collapsing to the ground during the Cincinnati-Buffalo NFL game.
Only then did Thornhill recognize that Hamlin’s injury was severe.
“I saw him stand up and look fine. Then he fainted and passed out. That was really scary,” Thornhill said Wednesday. “It definitely touched me when I watched it, and I was praying for him all night.”
Hamlin, who collapsed on the field following a cardiac incident, was given CPR by medical personnel before leaving in an ambulance. He remains in critical condition, but the Bills said Thursday morning that he was making “remarkable improvement,” and University of Cincinnati Medical Center doctors said Thursday afternoon that he has been able to communicate with them, and family members, in writing.
The Cincinnati-Buffalo game was suspended after Hamlin left the stadium, and the NFL clarified Tuesday that Week 18 games would be played as scheduled.
That means the first NFL game in the aftermath of the traumatic event will occur at 3:30 p.m. Central on Saturday, when the Chiefs take on the Raiders in Las Vegas.
Chiefs players spoke Wednesday about the difficulty of moving forward while also processing the Hamlin situation.
“There’s not a second that goes by that we don’t think about us being in that position or how he’s doing or how his health is doing, because any given play, that could be any one of us,” receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling said. “So trying to balance getting ready for Vegas and seeing a young man fight for his life is tough to do.”
Valdes-Scantling expanded on the challenge of what comes next. He loves football and says he never takes a game he gets to play in the NFL for granted.
Yet player safety remains paramount above all. He said he prays before each game for his health and also the health of his teammates and opponents.
Because everyone has seen what happened recently to Hamlin, Valdes-Scantling believed Saturday’s game would be “high anxiety” for players on both teams. Nonetheless, Valdes-Scantling said he hoped to approach the game like any other.
“When you get out there and start to put those fears and doubts ... that’s when more injuries happen,” Valdes-Scantling said. “So we try to take those worries and fears and anxieties out. But at the end of the day, our health is the most important thing.”
Thornhill didn’t anticipate altering his play Saturday based on the Hamlin event, saying he’s always been taught to play the game with speed and physicality. He also saw Hamlin’s injury as a “freakish accident, and that’s something you can’t control.”
“It could possibly affect some players, just knowing that guys might step on the field trying to play a little tentative, just because they don’t want things like that to happen,” Thornhill said. “But it’s just part of the game. This is the game that we play. We know what we signed up for. Guys go out there, and we’re physical every single day. So just hoping everyone can stay healthy and safe.”
Valdes-Scantling said Monday’s situation only made clear that NFL players “put our lives on the line” each time they step on a football field. Because of that, he said it was important for teammates to continue checking in with each other following Monday’s chilling scene.
“As football players, we’re taught to be tough and not let anything affect us and have thick skin and battle through adversity,” Valdes-Scantling said. “But that was real life.”
This story was originally published January 4, 2023 at 4:18 PM with the headline "Chiefs share emotions after Damar Hamlin injury: ‘I was praying for him all night’."
