Remarkably improved Bills safety Damar Hamlin’s first concern: ‘Did we win?’
LA TimesBuffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, left, warms up before a game against the New York Jets on Dec. 11, 2022. “You’ve won the game of life.” The uplifting moment was recounted in a news conference Thursday by Dr. Timothy Pritts, a trauma surgeon at University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where Hamlin was transported after collapsing in the first quarter of a game against the Cincinnati Bengals. “While there’s a long way to go, all signs are optimistic, and point to what is likely to be a full neurologic recovery, and we’ve got to get there, but so far things have been very, very positive,” Dr. Thom Mayer, medical director for the NFL Players Assn., said in a separate news conference Thursday. If that indeed turns out to be the bottom line diagnosis, then there’s been 24,000 men who have played this game in the National Football League and this has never happened before, so it would be one in 24,000 instances.” Hamlin’s father spoke to Bills players Wednesday and relayed his son’s appreciation of his teammates and desire for them to play this weekend. “Damar would have wanted it that way — and I’m paraphrasing — and that includes our game against New England this week.” Said Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen: “You can’t not honor his request to go out there.