Guide viewers through coverage to Buffalo Bill’s safety Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest Nothing was included in a guide during the first quarter of Monday night’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals.
ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt said, however, that while on the airwaves in a traumatic situation he knows what he needs to do – be calm, reasonable and share the knowledge with the audience.
“We’ve done our best to be human at the moment,” Van Pelt said Tuesday. “We would have tried to do a great job with a great game and it would have been damn fun, and then it was that. That was the seriousness of it, and the seriousness of it was unusual.”
ESPN first showed a few reruns of Hamlin collapsing on the lawn before heading to a commercial. It was no longer shown on the network for the entirety of its coverage. Joe Buck was the first to alert viewers that medical personnel were performing CPR.
ESPN also kept their cameras at a distance as both teams huddled around Hamlin. ESPN had the Skycam but chose not to position it over the scene.
The reluctance shown by ESPN showed how the networks’ coverage of serious injuries at sporting events has evolved. Many still remember the constant replays of Washington quarterback Joe Theismann, who suffered a compound fracture in his right leg while being fired by New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor on Monday Night Football in 1985.
Since that moment, networks have been more prudent in depicting traumatic events, whether it’s players suffering gruesome injuries or accidents at motorsport events, until a driver shows they’re paying attention.
While some questioned why ESPN didn’t call in a doctor for analysis, Van Pelt said there wasn’t enough information known about what happened to Hamlin.
“I see no use in guessing what that might be. I don’t know how we’re going to push anything,” he said.
St. Louis Blues and TNT analyst Darren Pang knows what Van Pelt means. Pang was between the benches in 2020 when St. Louis defenseman Jay Bouwmeester suffered a heart attack and collapsed on the bench during the first half of a game against the Anaheim Ducks.
Pang said the Blues production crew held a seminar to address things that might happen during the season. One of the scenarios was what happened when Dallas forward Rich Peverley collapsed on the bench during a game in 2014 due to an irregular heartbeat.
“I certainly saw more than I said and that was because of the training they told us. I’m not a doctor, so I didn’t want to do anything wrong,” Pang said. “I saw the faces of the players and that was enough for me to know how bad the situation was.”
Buck said several times that the Bills game would resume after a five-minute warm-up. There was footage showing Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow throwing lightly and Lisa Salters reporting from the sideline that Bills wide receiver Stefon Diggs attempted to give a speech cheering his team.
Troy Vincent, the league’s executive vice president of football operations, said resuming play had not been considered. ESPN said in a statement that there was constant communication between the network, the league and game officials. As standard league protocol, networks have a direct connection to the NFL during a game.
“As a result, we have reported what we were told at the moment and updated fans immediately as soon as new information emerged. This was an unprecedented, rapidly developing circumstance. We refrained from speculation throughout the night,” ESPN said in the statement.
The evening’s best perspective came from ESPN analyst Ryan Clark, who was hospitalized for an extended period in 2007 after suffering a splenic attack.
“I’ve dealt with this before and for days I’ve watched my teammates come to my hospital bed just crying. I had them call me and tell me they didn’t think I was going to make it and now this team has to deal with it and they don’t have the answers,” Clark said while continuing with Van Pelt. “We should remember that these men are risking their lives to live their dream. And tonight Damar Hamlin’s dream turned into a nightmare not only for himself but also for his family and team.”
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