Thread by @WorldWarWang

Several people replied to my tweet about Damar Hamlin's cardiac arrest by claiming this happens all the time and is very normal.

Well, I looked into it, and that is actually not true.

Below I will post what I learned about football injury and heart health.

I don't want to be an anti-science theorist, but I did a Google search on heart attacks during NFL games (limiting the search to before 1/6/22) and there is only recorded instance of this happening (which I will get to later).

The Wikipedia page entitled "Health issues in American football," which is pretty comprehensive, only mentions the word "heart" once and it is in relation to the use of HGH.

The Wiki article also mentioned cardiac contusions and Myocardial contusions, though again, we have no instances of cardiac arrest resulting from injury during an NFL game.

It should be understood that in the ye olden days of American football, the rules were much looser and people took much more serious hits.

In 1978, Jack Tatum's broke Darryl Stingley's spine, causing quadriplegia. No heart failure.

I suspect a lot of the people saying "this is normal and happens all the time" are not football fans.

So it should also be noted that the hit Damar took is not remotely unique.

Here's Reggie Bush getting blown out by Sheldon Brown in 2007.

The one person who did suffer heart failure during a game was also the one person who died during a game: Chuck Hughes in 1971.

It turned out he had undiagnosed and advanced arteriosclerosis - this is very serious heart disease.

Generally, no one with serious heart disease would be able to become such a high level athlete.

However, if someone like Hughes was able to perform at a high level while having a serious heart condition, there is no way he could get into the NFL in the current year.

Medical science has increased significantly since 1971, as has American litigiousness.

The NFL does not want to get sued, and they therefore require players to undergo some of the most extreme medical testing imaginable, most of it focusing on heart health.

The people claiming that "Hamlin must have had some serious heart problem" are basing that on nothing, and it is in fact impossible he would be playing if he did.

I hate to post a medical study, as I don't usually find that doing that is very useful, but for the sake of thoroughness I will note that a 2009 study found that NFL players, even as they retire and age, do not have any increased likelihood of heart problems.

I also found some studies since 2009 which claim that former NFL players do have an increased risk of various heart problems as they age. So there is some debate.

Aside from Hamlin and Hughes, the only other person in all of American football who had a heart attack during a game (that I was able to find) was a 13-year-old high school player who had a heart attack in September of 2022.

That had obviously never happened before.

Hopefully this clears some things up.

I was very shocked to see so many people replying to me and claiming Hamlin's incident was very normal and happens regularly, but I wanted to do some reading before I drew any conclusions.

Some of the people saying this are very adamant.

In conclusion, we don't know what caused Hamlin's cardiac event, but we must definitely conclude that this is very unique

It is absolutely fair to speculate.

Call us conspiracy theorists all you want, but there is a very good chance that climate change was responsible.