Until last Monday, when Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest in the first quarter of game with the Cincinnati Bengals, the tragic death of 28-year-old Detroit Lions wide receiver Chuck Hughes in 1971 during a game was nearly forgotten.
But not by me–I’ll always remember. When I learned that Hamlin collapsed during a play at Paul Brown Stadium, my first thought was of Hughes–and I switched on ESPN, which was airing the Bills-Bengals game. I was stupefied when members of an ESPN studio panel repeatedly, and of course incorrectly, said that Hamlin’s collapse on the field was unprecedented.
I believe it was James Joyce who said something along the lines that the first death a person experiences is the most tragic. For me, at the age of nine, the passing of Hughes was my first death.
I was at home in the Chicago area that afternoon watching the CBS broadcast of the Chicago Bears game against the Lions. The Bears were several years into a long stretch of mediocrity, while the Lions were just entering their time in the wilderness. The prior year the Lions made the playoffs. Since then, the Lions have been victorious in just one playoff game.
Unlike the Bills-Bengals matchup, which was nationally broadcast on ESPN, the Bears-Lions game probably aired only in Chicago and other parts of the Midwest.
Late in that ’71 game with, the Bears leading by four points, the Lions, led by quarterback Greg Landry, were on a drive–which was aided by a reception by Hughes–and they were deep in Bears territory with a little more than a minute left in the game when Hughes collapsed at the end of a play.
Not only were there no smartphones or even camcorders in 1971, but NFL broadcasts five decades ago used fewer cameras than what is used now. There is no videotape of Hughes’ collapse. And there is no videotape of Chicago Bears’ middle linebacker Dick Butkus frantically waving his arms to draw attention to Hughes. Last week, Butkus recalled what happened on that afternoon in Detroit. “He was coming back after an incomplete pass, and I couldn’t believe it, the color that he had. He just dropped,” the NFL Hall of Famer said.
Trainers and doctors from both teams, as well as a physician attending the game, tended to Hughes as he lay on the grass. My recollection is that Hughes was on the turf for about twenty minutes. Although Gary Dymski, who later became a journalist and who attended the game, said it was “ten or fifteen minutes” before an ambulance arrived.
In this ABC Detroit clip, Hughes’ nephew discusses Hamlin and the death of his uncle.
Unlike last week’s Bills-Bengals game, the Bears-Lions game continued, ending with a Chicago victory. Butkus recalled that there was no talk of cancelling the game. About ninety minutes later, Hughes was declared dead at Henry Ford Hospital. I was stunned when Hughes’ passing was announced as I watched a local news program.
The cause of Hughes’ death was a heart attack. After his autopsy it was discovered that his arteries were 75 percent blocked. Hughes had been treated at Henry Ford that summer, apparently, he had suffered a minor heart attack, but medical personnel attributed his chest pains to a spleen injury.
The next day at my elementary school, the Hughes death was what everyone was discussing. As well as a rumor that Butkus “killed” Hughes after a powerful hit. Not true. That night on the Chicago ABC Monday Night Football pregame show, one of the hosts, Detroit Lions legend Alex Karras, was nearly in tears as he reminisced about his former teammate. I was close to tears too.
Immediately after Hughes’ death, the NFL made it a league rule that there must be an ambulance at all games. Life-saving protocols have since been added by the NFL–each team is required to have an Emergency Action Plan, which was activated after Hamlin’s collapse. Generally, there are over two dozen doctors of various specialties at each NFL game.
Ace Rothstein: Four reels, sevens across on three $15,000 jackpots. Do you have any idea what the odds are?
Don Ward: Shoot, it’s gotta be in the millions, maybe more.
Ace Rothstein: Three fuckin’ jackpots in 20 minutes? Why didn’t you pull the machines? Why didn’t you call me?
Don Ward: Well, it happened so quick, 3 guys won; I didn’t have a chance…
Ace Rothstein: [interrupts] You didn’t see the scam? You didn’t see what was going on?
Don Ward: Well, there’s no way to determine that…
Ace Rothstein: Yes there is! An infallible way, they won!
Casino 1995
Now that Damar Hamlin is apparently out of danger for his life let’s talk about what happened.
I work Monday nights and was completely unaware of what had happened to Damar Hamlin until my boss told me during a break. Having not seen what happened I was:
Shocked the game had not continued, after all when Patriots receiver Daryll Stingley was paralyzed by a hit in my youth he was carted off the play and the game continued (apparently Hamlin expected the same as it’s reported the 1st thing he asked when regaining consciousness was “Did we win?”.
Presumed that the hit of Hamlin must have been a whopper if it made him drop like that.
So when I got home I went straight to youtube to view the hit. As I can no longer log in due to my ban I assumed I would not have to search for it as it would be promoted as one of the most popular viewed videos out there. Instead the first video I saw pushed was this one.
Three things hit me about this rather interesting video right away.
The timing. While the video was interesting and informative what struck me about it was the time was not so much what was in it but when it went up. The video is very professional yet it was up within 90 minutes of the hit. Now granted that if you were looking to maximize exposure for your channel you would want to take advantage of the situation but to have a video this professional up that fast was, shall we say, impressive.
Practically the first words out of his mouth was emphasizes “this has nothing to do with a vaccine” Something that he made it a point to stress a 2nd time at the end of the video. It was almost as if there was an imperative for that to be stressed before anybody saw anything else.
The fact that this video was being promoted OVER VIDOES OF THE ACTUAL HIT. You would think that people would be searching for the hit first but it was as if Youtube was making it a point to make sure people saw this video before they saw the hit itself
Given what we’ve seen and learned of in terms of organized censorship I found all these things suspicious. I became more suspicious when I saw the hit in real time because my reaction was the same as every single other person I’ve talked to: that didn’t seem like much of a hit to cause this.
That caused me to make a supposition.
It’s one thing to post stories about people having sudden reactions and even death because of the vaccine on a blog that gets a few hundred hits a day or even a site that gets millions, or with a hashtag #suddendeaths on the now less censored twitter and to see polls where a quarter of the population know someone who had had a bad reaction to the vaccine or even to be familiar with the VARES data. That can and to a large degree has been “contained” by those who wish it.
It’s quite another thing for a young professional athlete in the prime of his life and in peak physical condition to suddenly drop after a hit that seemed like nothing special during a game on one of the most watched television shows of the week (Monday Night Football) in the middle of a critical game in the most popular sport in the US in front of tens of millions of people. This is something that would get hundreds of millions of people talking.
For that you need damage control STAT! Something like say a video by a medical professional done quickly that quickly denies anything to do with the vaccine and provides an alternate credible explanation STAT!
The next day on my drive into work one of the sports shows I listen to during the drive had an ex player on wondering why we don’t see this happen more often if this kind of hit can cause it, which was just what I had been saying to the folks I was driving in with before he did.
And that when the math kicked into my head. I don’t claim to be a Doctor or a medical person at all, but ‘ve always been a numbers guy and this got my wheels turning.
The doctor in the video said that for a hit to have this result it would have to take place within a few milliseconds of that particular moment in the heart cycle. Now a person not thinking of the math upon hearing this might consider this a tiny window, particularly if they think a millisecond means a millionth of a second rather than a thousandth of a second. Even a few thousandths of a second doesn’t seem like much of a window until you remember that this is a few thousands of a second during each heartbeat.
Lets do the math:
At a heart rate of 100 beats a minute (I use that considering physical activity of a game boosted by the adrenal excitement of a play) that means that the .003 to .005 millisecond window that the doctor says this hit has to take place during to cause this effect takes place between .3 and .5 of a second every minute for every player there.
Now again that doesn’t seem like much 1/3 to 1/2 of a second window during a minute that comes out to a 1/120 to 1/300 chance per minute of a hit being within that window each minute.
But that when it gets interesting.
a football game is 60 minutes unless there is overtime so let’s make some presumptions
Let’s presume an average of 120 plays in a game and at least one hit on a player per play that’s 120 hits per game
(Yes I know there are kneel down plays and out of bounds plays but there are also many overtime games and two minutes offenses where plays are done quickly plus one hit per play is actually pretty low to anyone who has every watched football).
that’s 120 hits per game. Or 120 chances for a hit to be within that 1/120 or 1/300 window PER game.
there are 32 teams in the NFL. On a week where every team is playing that’s 16 games each with 120 hits.
16 games x 120 hits = 1920 hits
Additionally not counting the playoffs each team plays a 17 game schedule with 2 preseason games that’s 19 games per year
1920 hits x 19 games in a season = 36,480 hits per season
Under the current system there are 6 playoff games the 1st week of the playoffs, 4 games the second week, 2 games the third and then the superbowl. That’s an additional 13 games at 120 hits per game per season..
13 playoff games x 120 hits = 1,560 playoff hits
added to our previous result
36,480 hits + 1,560 hits = 38,040 hits per season
of course two years ago the nfl played only a 16 game schedule but with 4 preseason games so before 2022 the base figure before the playoffs would be
1920 hits x 20 games (pre 2022) = 38,400 hits
of course there were two less playoff games
11 games x 120 hits = 1,320 pre 2022 playoff hits
meaning the total number of hits in a season would come to
38,400 + 1,320 = 39,720 total hits in a season (pre 2022)
So let’s take the doctor’s own estimate of the time during which the Commotio cordis risk of heart failure being “within milliseconds of the cycle” of a heartbeat that 1/120th of a minute to 1/300th of a minute and apply the number of hits in a season to it for this season and last season
(1/120 of a second window per minute) x 38,040 hits = 317 hits during the danger window
and to be fair let’s also do the math on the low end
(1/300 of a second windows per minute ) x 38,040 hits = 126.8 hits during the danger window
That means that in each NFL season there are between 126 and 317 hits that take place within that window. But of course the doctor said it has to be to the right which makes this a rather unique event, unless you consider that we haven’t seen this before in the 21st century. Let’s go back to the math.
During the 20th century We’ve had two NFL seasons with the current schedule meaning with the number times that a hit has taken place during the right moment are:
2 seasons x 317 hits in the danger window =
634 hits in the danger window over 2 years
to 2 seasons x 126.8 hits in the window =
253.6 hits in the danger window
and 20 seasons with the old schedule
20 seasons x ( (1/120 odds) x 39,720 hits ) = 6,620 to 20 x ( ( 1/300 ) x 39,720 ) = 2648
Meaning that in the 21th century the number of hits that are timed just right during the danger window to cause what happened to Damar Hamlin were between:
7254 to 2901 hits within the danger window since 2000
So you’re telling me that with 2901 to 7254 chances for this kind of thing to happen over the course of the 22 NFL seasons in the 21st century only one hit was hard enough and in the right place to make this happen?
And again this is the considering the NFL, this doesn’t count college games or high school games or even the Canadian football league. Nor does it count the previous 80 years of the NFL existence. Yet you want me to believe that this was just a freak event this one hit at this time was the only one out of all those game where this happened?
I’ll ignore the math above and take the official explanation that the Damar Hamlin hit was a million to one or three hundred million to one shot totally unrelated to the vaccine mandates in the NFL as gospel truth, right up until the moment it happens again to another active player.
I’ll tell you one thing, if another active NFL player drops from sudden unexpected heart failure then it will take a lot more than a good youtube video to prevent a class action suit from the players association against the league’s vax mandate, nor will it prevent similar suits from other professional players unions also subject to such rules.
At that point my belief or disbelief will be the least of anyone’s worries.
Update: I didn’t know about Chuck Hughes dying on the field in 71, as I was 8 and the NFL wasn’t anywhere near as big nationally, but John Ruberry saw it, A key note:
Immediately after Hughes’ death, the NFL made it a league rule that there must be an ambulance at all games. Life-saving protocols have since been added by the NFL–each team is required to have an Emergency Action Plan, which was activated after Hamlin’s collapse. Generally, there are over two dozen doctors of various specialties at each NFL game.
The EAP probably saved Hamlin’s life.
Update 2: Welcome Hotair headline readers, take a look around and if you like what you see please consider hitting DaTipJar keep our writers paid and our costs covered.
I was at work and away from any kind of radio or TV when Damar Hamlin went down during the Bengals/Bills game.
When I got home I went to youtube to look at the video but what was pushed up front wasn’t the hit, which I would have expected to be front and center as a trending popular choice, but a video of a doctor, complete with labeled charts insisting that this particular hit was just at the right time in the cycle of the heartbeat to cause this issue and INSISTING that nobody should speculate about vaccines.
Don Surber is invoking the 24 hour rule which is sensible but this Doc obviously had this up and ready within 4 hours and youtube coincidently made it a point to promote it to me last night.
I can see why, you can have all the hashtags you want about “died suddenly” even on the new free to speak twitter but nothing gets the attention of the public then an athlete in seemingly peak shape suddenly collapsing in front of one of the largest TV audiences of the week after a hit that looked like nothing special.
No word on if the Doc has any comment on the sudden death of 38 year old former Jaguars guard Uche Nwaneri from acute heart failure. I presume nobody hit him.
Don Surber notes quite the coincidence of Joe Biden’s latest vacation to the Virgin Islands corresponding with this:
After successfully settling a $105 million lawsuit against the estate of Jeffrey Epstein in early December, U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise N. George then filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase saying the “bank knowingly provided and pulled the levers through which recruiters and victims were paid.”
Given this and the democrats sudden public support for drag queens shaking their genitals in the faces of kids It seems more and more likely that the entire party is simply a grooming gang.
Apparently Mastodon, the platform that a lot of high profile leftists and journalists migrated to after leaving twitter is according to this piece, a haven for child porn but does their best to hide that fact.
See my final comment from the previous block for my thoughts.
There was a conversation about electric cars on twitter than I joined making the following point:
I don't have a problem with electric cars, I have a problem with people pretending they are an clean alternate when you have
1. Really nasty mining to get the battery components 2. disposal issues for batteries 3. Electricity that has to come from somewhere (coal etc)
Like COVID, ESPTEIN etc if people were just straight about things it would be much better. Given time electric cars may overcome their limitations, after all the internal combustion engine of 2022 is far superior to that of 1968, but they’re not there yet.
Apparently the push to make us panic about Monkeypox now called M-Pox has fizzled as no about of fearmongering or spin was able to convince people that a person who doesn’t engage in either
Gay sex with a man
Sex with someone who engages in gay sex with men
will catch it.
Oh well I’m sure they’ll manage to unload the various vaccines over time.
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