Buffalo Bills Safety Damar Hamlin Plays In First NFL Game Since Cardiac Arrest

Well, after all those conspiracy theories about Damar Hamlin after he had suffered a cardiac arrest on the field, after all those claims that he had a body double, the Buffalo Bills safety has now returned to playing football. Hamlin took the field in the Bills first preseason game when they hosted the Indianapolis Colts on August 12. And if you still believe that Hamlin has somehow been replaced by a body double, then that body double did quite well, totaling three solo tackles in the Bills 23-19 victory over the Colts.

Of course, NFL preseason game scores are about as meaningful as political polls a year out from a Presidential election. They are fairly meaningless. So, the story of the game had to be Hamlin’s successful return to the NFL playing field. It’s been a little over eight months since Hamlin went into cardiac arrest after receiving a blow to the chest in a Monday Night Football game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

As I described for Forbes, when seeing what happened on the field, many real expert cardiologists soon suspected that he had suffered commotio cordis, which is a rare event in which trauma to the chest disrupts the electrical signals in your heart. Such a diagnosis seemed to best match the circumstances and history of what had happened. Yet, a number of anti-vaxxers and misinformation spreaders disregarded that commotio possibility and tried to create their own commotion. They immediately tried to blame the Covid-19 vaccine for the fact that Hamlin’s heart stopped beating despite not providing any real concrete evidence to support such claims.

They kept beating the “blame the vaccine” drum even after Hamlin was discharged on January 11 from the hospital and began making some public appearances, even circulating the conspiracy theory that Hamlin had a body double hiding Hamlin’s so-called “vaccine injury.” Yes, a body double. As I covered for Forbes back then, they didn’t offer much real concrete evidence supporting this body double theory either. But who needs evidence to support what you say these days, right?

The Bills shared on Twitter—or X or whatever it’s called these days—photos of Hamlin during warm-ups before Saturday’s game along with an emoji showing a heart formed by a couple hands:

Most of the responses were positive, encouraging and welcoming. However, surprise, surprise some of the responses continued to push the vaccine injury and body double narratives. For example one anonymous account that apparently paid Twitter to get a blue check-mark responded with several vaccine emojis and “That ain’t the real Damar lol.” Yeah, lol indeed.

These conspiracy theory narratives shouldn’t dampen the fact that Hamlin’s return on Saturday is a credit to his hard work and real medicine. After receiving prompt care and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on the Paycor Stadium field in Cincinnati, Ohio, Hamlin was rushed to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. A week later, he was transferred to Buffalo General Hospital in New York where he was discharged nine days after being first hospitalized. Three months after collapsing on the field, Hamlin indicated that he was “working out” with the Bills team. This transitioned to a “full go” at training camp in July. And now Hamlin is back to being an NFL player.