Damar Hamlin’s medical episode during Monday night’s game between his Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals proved a little too close to home for ex-Austin Westlake football player Matt Nader.
Hamlin, a 2021 sixth-round pick of the Bills, collapsed and required cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) after he brought down Bengals wideout Tee Higgins, bringing the highly-anticipated primetime contest to an abrupt standstill.
According to a report from Austin NBC affiliate KXAN, Nader experienced something similar during a game in September 2006.
Nader, then a high school senior who was slated to attend and play for the University of Texas at Austin (UT), recalled to the station how he felt unusually lethargic before encountering what he described as “an explosion of pain in my chest.”
“[I] started to lose consciousness, and I kind of slumped off the back of the bench,” he said, per KXAN.
The station reported that Nader suffered cardiac arrest, the same thing that befell Hamlin a few nights ago.
Nader bluntly stated that his heart stopped beating.
“It was kind of quivering like a bowl of Jell-O instead of pumping,” he recounted to KXAN.
Fortunately for him, Westlake had an automated external defibrillator (AED) on the sidelines and it took one shock to revive him, the station reported.
Hamlin was rushed to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center after first responders successfully restored his heartbeat on the field, his unprecedented ordeal prompting the Bills and the National Football League’s (NFL) 31 other franchises to express support and concern.
The 24-year-old safety remains in critical condition as of Thursday.
Nader, who had an undiagnosed heart condition, said it’s essential that people learn CPR.
“If you are armed with the knowledge on how to do CPR, when to do CPR, why to do CPR and you do have AEDs available, you can save lives, point blank,” he said, KXAN reported.