Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest on the field during a clash with the Cincinnati Bengals earlier this year - and team-mate Stefon Diggs has detailed the aftermath of the distressing incident.
Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest almost immediately after being struck by Tee Higgins during a play before paramedics rushed to give him treatment - through CPR and a defibrillator - eventually taking him to hospital for further treatment. Hamlin has since recovered and appeared at the Super Bowl with staff members from the Bills and the University of Cincinnati Hospital.
But wide-receiver Diggs has opened up on the entire incident during an episode of The Shop: Uninterrupted. Diggs began by talking about the "movie" scene of seeing Hamlin flatline twice - and thinking he had died.
"It was so inconsistent. Like, he came to. He went, you know what I'm saying? You saw...nobody else saw it. But we saw the - what's this called?"
"The heart monitor?" Maverick Carter, LeBron James' close friend and business partner, said. "Yes, flatline," replied Diggs. "You saw it flatline?" Carter asked.
"Swear to God. Saw it flatline twice," confirmed Diggs. "They shocked him. He came back, and everybody was like...it's like a movie. It was such a moment of, like, I don't know. Like, it's kind of hard to describe because it's inconsistent on how to feel."
The incident was a reality check for Diggs, and the rest of the NFL, at how quickly things could go wrong on the playing field. "For people who feel a way about [football], I've got to put it into perspective for you," he said.
"Our Damar Hamlin situation, when we kind of damn near lost somebody on the field. That's how physical it is. That's how serious it is, so when people refer to it as a game, I like to say, 'I'm not out there playing'."
While medical staff were treating Hamlin, there were conversations about whether the match should continue. Hamlin's first words after coming through were famously "did we win?", to which doctors replied: "Damar, you won. You won the game of life." And those words resonated with Diggs.
''I was a little iffy. I was like 'Damn, am I messed up for wanting to get guys to play?' Obviously, some guys couldn't. But then when he woke up and said 'Did we win', it was reassuring that I know he has a winning spirit. I knew my little bro would've wanted me to go bump with them, not go and leave."
"Guys crying and in that moment, I couldn't do anything but other than — if I know Damar Hamlin personally, which I do like a little bro — get your guys ready to go.
"Rally your guys behind him because if you didn't have something to play for, you got something to play for now. Of course, they ultimately ended the game… which was probably in the best interest. But in that moment, if we had to go back out there, I know Damar would've want us to play… because when he came to finally his first words were, ''Did we win?'"
