Damar Hamlin’s emergency team looks back: ‘It was me, God and that kid’

Growing up, John Bush Jr. boxed. and played basketball and football. But on Jan. 2, Bush was part of a relay team whose baton was the life of Damar Hamlin.

A native of Cincinnati, Bush has been a respiratory therapist with the Paycor Stadium Emergency Action Team since its inception in 2018. The team is the result of the emergency action plan (EAP) that every NFL stadium must have in place in the event of severe trauma. . Although Bush has been on the sidelines every game since the NFL contracted with the University of Cincinnati Medical Center’s Level 1 Trauma Center, he had never crossed the line onto the playing field during a game.

That all changed when Hamlin, a second-year safety for the Bills, went into cardiac arrest during a “Monday Night Football” game between the Bills and Bengals. Bush and the UC team rushed into action as millions watched at home and more than 65,000 silent fans sat in the stands.

“The crowd didn’t exist at that moment, it was me, God and that child,” Bush recalled almost a year later. “I looked at him like he was my child. He is 24 years old. I have a 22-year-old daughter and a 29-year-old son. My main goal was to bring him home to his mother.”

But first Bush had a more important task to fulfill. When he got to where Hamlin lay at center field, Bush grabbed the blue Ambu bag, a self-inflating ventilator for manual ventilation, and squeezed it like a balloon, which did the breathing for Hamlin.

The Bills’ athletic trainers began the life-saving relay, with assistant athletic trainer Denny Kellington first on the scene to administer CPR. Then came the UC team, including Bush and Dr. B. Woods Curry, the designated co-leader that night in the stadium. Like Bush, Curry has been part of this team since 2018.

Curry is an emergency room physician at UC Medical Center and a consultant for the Bengals’ EAP. Like the Bengals, the EAP team trains during the preseason and throughout the regular season, preparing for any potential on-field emergency. There are at least seven doctors on the field for home games, along with respiratory technicians like Bush, paramedics and at least two paramedics. The team must be prepared for anything.

“There were elements in this particular case that were a little bit different than any specific case we’ve ever practiced,” Curry said.

It took almost half an hour from the time Hamlin collapsed to the time he was loaded into the ambulance. During that time, Kellington performed CPR, Bush used the Ambu bag, and Curry intubated Hamlin. As the ambulance drove away, Curry stayed behind in case the game resumed. Bush, however, rode with Hamlin.

In the half hour the medical team spent on the field with Hamlin, the UC Medical Center trauma team prepared for Hamlin’s arrival. This was the last leg of the life-saving relay.

Dawn Schultz, an emergency room nurse, got a text from her husband: “You’re about to get to work.”

Schultz’s husband had been watching on TV, as had the husband of Dr. Valerie Sams, an emergency room physician and traumatic injury specialist. Sams’ husband sent a similar text to his wife, although he was saddened to later learn that this was the third one Sams received. Several colleagues at the match texted as the ambulance left the stadium to make the five-mile journey to the hospital.

Without traffic, the drive to I-71 can take as little as eight minutes. How long did it last that night?

“It felt like an eternity,” says Sams.

“That’s right,” Schultz said. “It felt like an eternity.”

But at that moment, Sams, Schultz and the rest of their team prepared to take over. The staff usually consists of an attending physician and three residents, nurses, respiratory therapists and physicians. Ventilators, monitors and IVs are prepared and the X-ray department is alerted when a patient enters. That’s just standard procedure, whether it’s an NFL player or a car accident victim. That’s what happens every night in the ER.

“When that door opened and I saw a lot of doctors, I felt a comfort, a satisfaction that we got him where he needed to be,” Bush said.

If Bush felt comfort at that moment, he was one of the few. The rest of the world wondered, worried and prayed for Hamlin. When it started to rain, a crowd of well-wishers gathered outside the hospital. Some lit candles, others led prayers. Everyone hoped Hamlin would beat the odds. However, few expected him to return to Cincinnati this weekend as an active NFL player.

In the months since, Bush’s friends have a better idea of ​​what he’s doing. This also applies to the wider world.

Within a week of Hamlin’s injury, manufacturers of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in the United States sold out. According to Curry, there is still a backlog of orders for the machines.

“On every playing field in the United States of America, there should be an AEP and someone trained to perform bystander CPR and administer the AED immediately,” Curry said. “The National Football League has a great system. These fields are the safest places in the world to practice the sport. “But if we can make a high school football field safer because of this incident, that would be an amazing result, besides the amazing result that Damar achieved.”

Hamlin’s Chasing Ms Foundation organized a CPR tour, providing thousands of CPR training sessions and providing AEDs for youth sports. Hamlin also helped introduce the Access to AEDs Act in the U.S. House of Representatives.

UC Medical Center has also expanded its CPR education program and reached out to the community to teach people how to perform hands-on CPR and how to use AEDs.

It was sometime about 16 hours after he collapsed that Hamlin woke up. Although still intubated, he was able to perform simple commands, wiggling his right toes and raising his left thumb. At that point, everyone on the team started to feel better.

Curry said he couldn’t sleep until he got that phone call. Bush had slept the night before, but woke up in tears because his heart was so heavy.

It wasn’t until that Friday evening, four days after Hamlin collapsed on the field, that Bush was able to see him in person again. By then, Hamlin was off the ventilator and his family joined him in the room. Bush recalled that Hamlin was smiling “from ear to ear” as he talked about how he had done Hamlin’s breathing for him. The two then both punched their chests, a symbol of their mutual respect and new bond.

“That was a sense of relief,” Bush said. “And I got to hug his mother.”

The Bills and Hamlin return to Paycor Stadium on Sunday night. On Saturday, Bush will join Hamlin, his family and many others at a steakhouse in downtown Cincinnati to celebrate.

(Photo: Dylan Buell/Getty Images)

“The Football 100,” the definitive ranking of the NFL’s 100 Greatest Players of All Time, is now available for purchase. Order it here.