CINCINNATI — It’s bound to be an emotional game Sunday night when the Cincinnati Bengals play the Buffalo Bills.
The last time these two teams played each other at Paycor Stadium was the night Bills safety Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest.
“I remember it being very, very quiet,” Dr. Jason McMullan said.
McMullan was standing on the 20-yard Bills sideline when it happened.
“I saw the play, I saw him get up, scanned, and like everyone else I think kind of relaxed a little bit. It was not until I saw actual players on the field and others summoning just a few seconds later that something had happened, and so I made my way onto the field,” he said.
McMullan specializes in emergency medicine with UC Health and is the director of the EMS Division. He’s one of the independent doctors hired by the NFL and was the emergency response physician the night Hamlin collapsed.
He was at Hamlin's side in seconds.
“In many ways that was just a Monday night. That’s what we do in emergency medicine. It’s what our paramedics do every single day in this city. The only big difference is that it was in front of a big crowd,” McMullan said.
He said all of the medical teams meet 60 minutes before kickoff to talk about what they’ll do in the event of an emergency and who is responsible if there’s a cardiac arrest.
“I think what I’ll most remember is how calm it was on the field while we were providing that care, and how calm it was in the emergency department when we got here, and how calm it was in the intensive care unit as he progressed through his care," McMullan said. "That calmness I think shows we were all very well prepared for what happened that night."
That night spotlighted the importance of CPR training and AEDs.
“Ninety percent of people who experience cardiac arrest do not survive," said Yolana Wakefield-Wilson with the American Heart Association.
She said that night changed people’s views on using an AED.
“It’s not as inaccessible as we once thought it was,” she said. “I can tell you is that our training centers are seeing increased interest, we’re getting increased outreach for just hands-only CPR training, again, using those compressions only when you see a teen or adult go down in sudden cardiac arrest.”
McMullan said over the requests for CPR training through UC Health's Take-10 Cincinnati program have skyrocketed over the past nine months.
McMullan is set to be back on the sidelines for Sunday's Bengals vs. Bills game. He’ll be the airway management physician.
He was also at Fountain Square before the game to help teach people CPR for UC Health’s CPR training event between 4-8 p.m.
McMullan said he hopes what happened in January continues to keep motivating others to learn CPR.
“I would encourage every single person watching to take 10 minutes and learn how to do CPR,” McMullan said.
