The latest news on Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin is encouraging after he suffered cardiac arrest in the middle of the game against the Cincinnati Bengals. He remains in critical condition but is showing signs of improvement. Hamlin's case is the latest to happen on the field this past year in sports.
According to a report by One America News Network (OANN), there were at least 769 collapses or cardiac arrests among high-level athletes while competing, of which 300 occurred in December. In addition, OANN concludes that the average age of the athletes who suffered this type of incident is 23 years old, a time when they begin to become established in each of their respective sports.
Blame the vaccine
OANN’s Pearson Sharp believes Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine is the main culprit of these heart-related incidents among elite athletes based on the conclusions drawn by various physicians. In addition, he believes this merits a clear response from those in charge of vaccine development:
Coincidence? When the Pfizer vaccine is known to cause heart inflammation? No. In fact, many doctors treating these players list their injuries and deaths as being directly caused by the vaccine... This is not a coincidence – healthy teenagers dying after getting the Pfizer injection. Doctors warned the FDA before they released the experimental vaccine that it would ‘almost certainly cause terrible organ damage.’
Have more cases occurred than we are shown?
Sharp gave as an example the withdrawals of tennis players Paula Badosa (25) and Jannik Sinner (21) at the 2022 Miami Open after they collapsed while playing a match. He also questioned whether more cases have occurred than are recorded during the season:
These are just two o [sic.] more than 769 athletes who have collapsed during a game on the field over the last year. From March of 2021 to March of this year. The average age of the players suffering cardiac arrest is just 23-years-old. How many 23-year-old athletes were collapsing and suffering heart attacks before this year? Do you know any 23-year-old people who had heart attacks before now? And these are just the ones we know about. How many have gone unreported? Nearly 800 athletes – young, fit people in the prime of life falling down on the field. In fact, 500% more soccer players in the EU are dropping dead from heart attacks than just one year ago.
Most known cardiac deaths and incidents
Damar Hamlin's cardiac arrest is the latest in a long list of similar incidents. Danish soccer star Christian Eriksen collapsed in the middle of a match on June 12, 2021. The athlete suffered a cardiorespiratory arrest. Medics performed resuscitation and managed to stabilize him and admit him to the hospital. Months later, the player managed to return to play a professional match and, in fact, participated in the World Cup in Qatar.
Another of the most recognized cases is that of the mythical goalkeeper of the Spanish National Team and Real Madrid Íker Casillas. With Football Club Porto - the Portuguese team where he finished his career - he suffered a heart attack in 2019 while training with his teammates. He, like Eriksen, managed to recover, although he had to retire from his professional career.
Without changing sports, other soccer players had worse luck. Cameroonian Marc-Vivien Foé in 2003, Hungarian Miklós Fehér in 2004 and Spaniard Antonio Puerta in 2007 all collapsed while playing a match and died. Two other cases are those of Spaniard Dani Jarque in 2009 and Italian Davide Astori who died in their sleep.
Italian cyclist Alessio Galleti also died tragically during a professional race in Spain as a result of a cardiac arrest in 2005. In the same year, NBA player Jason Collier died of an arrhythmia.
