Ultimately, many (perhaps most) NFL players leave the game because of injuries which prevent them from being able to continue playing – not only those who suffer the catastrophic injuries like Hamlin’s (or those who have become paralyzed while playing), but those who suffer major knee or leg injuries while playing, and are never able to suit up again.
When I was in cardiac rehab, I watched a guy drop in cardiac arrest on the treadmill in front of me. (He, thankfully, was resuscitated on the scene and had successful bypass afterwards. I don’t know why he was there in the first place.)
We were all on 4-lead EKGs. Afterwards, I spent a lot of time talking to the medical staff. Why were we all on continuous monitors if not to catch this sort of thing before it happened? They said that frequently, and in this case, there’s just nothing to see before everything goes south.
That’s frightening.
I had a cardio work up before surgery.
They did the EKG and then repeated after giving me a shot to speed up my heart
I hated that shot. For about 2 mins you feel totally wiped out. It’s a scary feeling.
They did a final EKG an hour later to make sure I was ok before going home.
I also wore a monitor for a few days that collected data.
I passed and had my surgery.
I don’t think they would do that type of test on young athletes. Unless they had health issues.
reporting has changed. mr hamlin’s uncle stated that he was resuscitated twice; his manager is saying his uncle misspoke and that he was resuscitated once on the field.
things can get confusing in situations like this.
Did the team doctors use a defibrillator on the field?
I’ve only seen CPR mentioned in reports.
CPR can be really rough. Broken ribs are common. But it’s better than dying.
That has me wondering, what’s the appropriate CPR to do if someone already has broken ribs and chest injuries? Not necessarily in Hamlin’s case, but in general.
IANAD, but “chest trauma” is probably a lot easier to treat than “death”.
I.e., reestablishing a heartbeat probably trumps not inflicting further injury.
On TV doctors use defibrillators. In real life not so much. The paramedics have defibrillators and would have used it as soon as possible once they found a shockable rhythm. Getting CPR without a defib being used is very bad news. It means there was never a shockable rhythm. Getting defibbed quickly is why he’s alive. I’m not even close to being a paramedic and I’ve used a defib on someone many times.
He will certainly be on the upper end of those statistics especially if it was commotio cordis. The stats are so low because for almost all people your heart doesn’t stop because of some freak blow to the chest. It’s because there is something very wrong with your body and probably has been wrong for a long time. CPR and defibs can’t help. For Hamlin it’s probably the best circumstances for recovery anyone could hope for.
Almost the exact word for word answer I got when I first trained in CPR many years ago.
Here’s a former NHL player talking about what it was like when his heart stopped after taking a puck in the chest.
I think you were having a stress test and the reason you got the medication is because for some reason, they didn’t want you to raise your heart rate by exercise. ( I always end up on the treadmill) I’m guessing that most professional athletes would have had one at some point - it doesn’t cost much, isn’t terribly dangerous and a team is not going to want to give a contract to someone with cardiac issues.
I don’t believe CPR alone ever restores a normal rhythm. CPR’s purpose is to maintain some blood flow to the brain until a defibrillator can be applied.
The ribs broken during my CPR were certainly painful, but a big improvement on death.
The only problem with the broken ribs was that they kept asking if I still had chest pain in the cath lab, and finally, in confusion, said “oh, you don’t know…”
I had the the same thing only it was prophylactic rather than before a specific procedure. They put a port in my arm and shot me with gamma ray dye, waited an hour so it could good and dispersed, then took a baseline scan with two plates at 90-degrees. After that they pushed something else into the port after warning me it would probably cause palpitations and trigger anxiety but assuring me it was safe, then took a second scan.
I didn’t feel a damn thing. The tech kept asking, “You feel all right?” “I feel fine. Go ahead and do your thing.” I guess they got the readings they needed because they didn’t ask for another appointment for a repeat.
For what it’s worth, edible cannabis doesn’t do much for me either, at least in the doses I’ve tried.
Yeah, with my arthritis, that was a no-go for me.
Agreed, although I’ll point out that we were all in cardiac rehab for a reason. I don’t think spontaneous fibrillation is something most people should lose sleep over.
For all I know, his rhythm always looked like something was imminent and so there was no indication that it was going to get even worse in this particular instant.
I said shot. But I think now 
they did start an IV.
They wanted it available in case anything went wrong.
The heart monitor at home was interesting. I had to keep a time log of stuff I did. Sweeping the floor, carrying out trash, restroom etc.
I work for the agency that does worker’s compensation for my state. Our NFL team, the Seattle Seahawks, are self-insured so are not part of our state’s worker’s comp group. I used to work in an office that was in walking distance of their stadium after all. I learned about the Seahawks in conversation with some of my colleagues there.
It’s not anything confidential, there is even a news article talking about this:
The funny thing is, some of the things described in that article as far as surveillance goes are things that some of my coworkers do to investigate workers compensation fraud. They’re just doing all the stuff on their own.
So to answer the question, yes, there is workers compensation for players, but I believe all of the teams are self-insured in that regard and don’t use the same workers compensation that most of us would if we were injured at work.
I’d actually travelled to Detroit to watch this game with friends I’d made online. It was really scary. I saw his lips turn blue, and I knew it was serious. Thankfully, he had to no long term damage. He regained consciousness on the ice and didn’t need to be defibrilated.
Maybe - in my state, there are two different agencies , one that is actually an insurance carrier run by the state and another that has jurisdiction over all worker’s comp claims, whether the employer is self-insured, has a policy through a private insurance company or has a policy through the state fund and another one that administers the process and decides disputed cases. Not nearly everyone is covered by the state insurance carrier - I wouldn’t be surprised if most people are covered either by private insurance companies or self-insured employers.
Or as our instructor said, “If there’s no pulse, you’re dealing with a corpse. Nothing you can do will make things worse.”