Ryan Clark had an emotional reaction to Damar Hamlin's frightening injury on Monday night during the Buffalo Bills game against the Cincinnati Bengals. Addressing the situation on ESPN’s SportsCenter after the game, Clark spoke candidly about the "ugly" side of football.
He began: “This is about Damar Hamlin, and it’s about a young man at 24-years-old that was living his dream .. that a few hours ago, was getting ready to play the biggest game of his NFL career, and there’s probably nowhere else in the world he wanted to be. And now, he fights for his life.”
From there, Clark continued: “And when Damar Hamlin falls to the turf, and when you see the medical staff rush to the field and both teams are on the field, you realize this isn’t normal. You realize, this just isn’t football. And so many times in this game, and in our job as well, we use the cliches. ‘I’m ready to die for this.’ I’m willing to give my life for this.’ ‘It’s time to go to war.’ And I think sometimes, we use those things so much, we forget that part of living this dream is putting your life at risk. And tonight, we got to see a side of football that is extremely ugly. A side of football that no one ever wants to see or never wants to admit exists.”
The incident occurred in the first quarter after Tee Higgins slammed into Hamlin. Medical staff performed CPR on Hamlin on the field, before rushing him to a local hospital. The Bills later confirmed that Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest after the hit.
Clark suffered his own medical emergency during his NFL career in a game against the Broncos in Denver in 2007. The high altitude exacerbated a pain in his side. It turned out he suffered a splenic infarction from a sickle cell trait he was diagnosed with as a child.
Check out Ryan Clark's comments on Damar Hamlin below.
[Via]
