Damar Hamlin's Cardiac Arrest: Key Lessons

This discussion was recorded on January 9, 2023. This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Robert D. Glatter, MD: Welcome. I'm Dr Robert Glatter, medical advisor for Medscape Emergency Medicine. Today, we have Dr Paul Pepe, an emergency medicine physician based in Florida and a highly recognized expert in emergency medical services (EMS), critical care, sports and event medicine, and resuscitation. Also joining us is Dr Mick Malloy, an emergency medicine physician based in Ireland, also an expert in prehospital care, resuscitation, and sports and event medicine. Welcome, gentlemen.

Paul E. Pepe, MD, MPH: Thanks for having us here.

Glatter: We have a serious event to discuss today. We're going to be talking about what happened to Damar Hamlin, the Buffalo Bills safety who went down suffering a cardiac arrest in front of millions and millions of people. Although we don't know the exact cause of the events that transpired, the goal of our discussion is to guide our audience through a systematic approach to evaluation and management of an athlete suffering blunt force chest and neck trauma, and then suffering a cardiac arrest. We do know, obviously, that Damar was successfully resuscitatedthanks to the medical staff and trainers.