It’s still unclear what caused Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest, a condition that results from electrical disturbances that cause the heart to suddenly stop beating properly. Death can occur quickly if help is not provided immediately.
It is not the same as a heart attack or heart failure.
CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta explained that when the heart isn’t beating well, sometimes fluid can back up into the lungs and make it difficult for medical staff to oxygenate the patient. Therefore, they will turn the person on their stomach to a prone position to facilitate breathing.
Gupta also said it appears that Hamlin still has a significant amount of heart dysfunction and that his heart cannot pump enough blood.
One of the treatment options is to decrease the body’s demand for oxygenated blood.
“So you want to improve the amount of circulation, but in the meantime you can also decrease the demand by sedating someone, keeping them on a breathing machine,” he said. “Sometimes they’ll even use cooling agents, it’s called hypothermia, basically to almost put the body in a more hibernation-like state so it doesn’t require as much oxygenated blood. That’s part of the reason why it would also be on a breathing machine.”
Hamlin Status: The 24-year-old Buffalo Bills safety is on a ventilator to relieve some of the strain on his lungs, which have been damaged, according to his uncle Dorrian Glenn.
Doctors told Glenn that his nephew has also been “turned on his stomach” at the hospital to help with the blood in his lungs, she said, adding: “He seems to have a tendency to ‘rises in a positive way’.
Injuries on the field are not uncommon in the NFL, which often resumes play even after serious incidents. But several current and former players have said Hamlin’s cardiac arrest felt particularly troubling as medical staff fought to save his life as fans and players looked on.
Read more here.