I assume you recall that Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin’s heart stopped during a prime time televised game in January. The diagnosis was that a hard hit got him in exactly the wrong place, causing the otherwise healthy athlete to nearly die on the spot.
Now Hamlin has been cleared to return to football activities, Bills General Manager Brandon Beane announced yesterday, saying that three specialists had cleared Hamlin play NFL football again.
“My heart is still in the game,” Hamlin said in a news conference, proving he could still engage in a play on words. “I love the game. It’s something I want to prove to myself — not nobody else.”
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day…
Is it responsible for the NFL to let Hamlin play again?
Of course the NFL will let him play; it doesn’t care. It puts all of its player at unreasonable and unethical risk of serious health consequences in every game. And of course Hamlin wants to play: he’s a football player. The doctors are just making it easier for him.
I don’t think I have ever seen a ticking moral luck bomb like this one, however. If Hamlin dies on the field—and I wouldn’t bet that he won’t—then everyone will condemn the NFL and the doctors, saying that they virtually killed him. If he manages to play a few more years so he just dies of brain damage from all of the concussions he sustained over his career (like other ex-NFL players), then letting him play after his near-death experience was the right thing to do.
The NFL should have a hard rule that if any player suffers a life-threatening injury during a game, he cannot play again. That would be responsible, caring, and fair. It’s not worth talking about, though, because the league is just as likely to require all players to wear a Michelin Man costume during games.
Ethics Alarms 
Assuming the diagnosis we heard about was accurate, and leaving aside the prospect of CTE and variations on the theme, I guess I’m OK if appropriate medical professionals (not hired by the league or the team) say he’s cleared to play. Saying no would be cleaner, but I’m not sure that that should take precedence over the informed opinion of experts in the field.
Tough call.
The team and the league should simply employ this guy at a generous salary for life as an ambassador for the team or the league. Or the players association should do the same. But to do so would be an admission that the game is dangerous. Which would fly in the face of concussion protocols, new rules and different helmets have made the game safe for all.
My one recommendation if pro-football won’t go away is to return to leather pads and helmets. The current gladiator armor they use promote harder hits with rougher consequences. Take them back to the era where a stupid hard hit turned into a broken collarbone and the negative feedback look will get the problem under control.
Football is a game between consenting participants. You risk serious injury every time you set foot on the field, and everyone who plays the game in middle school and beyond understands this. The allure of the playing experience and all that comes with it outweighs that risk for players. It’s no surprise to me that Hamlin wants to return. Absent some well-defined and very likely harmful outcome (say, the equivalent of playing Russian roulette with four of six chambers loaded), the NFL should let the individual player and teams make the call. I don’t think there is some higher ethics question at issue here.
And just so we are clear, the teams will also take a risk by bringing him back. At the worst, it’s remotely possible that he could sustain a cardio injury that doesn’t quite kill him but puts him on life support or some other long-term care situation that will be covered by workers’ compensation, the NFL benefits program, or some third-party liability. All of this will be factored into any return decision by the clubs and their medical staffs.
Assuming that the doctors have done due diligence in ruling out all other possible causes of Hamlin’s heart stoppage and that the diagnosis of commotio cordis is solid, then the NFL has no basis for denying Hamlin the right to play. The likelihood of a recurrence for Hamlin is identical to the likelihood of any other player suffering commotio cordis for a first time.
The likelihood of a recurrence for Hamlin is identical to the likelihood of any other player suffering commotio cordis for a first time.
Except there is no other instance of an NFL player suffering commotio cordis on the field and returning to play. So this involves a degree of speculation…and someone’s life is involved. What is professionally responsible? You and I both know that medicine still involves a lot of the unknown.
Meanwhile, other players may be hurt by subconsciously avoiding maximum contact with Hamlin. If one does kill him with a hard hit, that player may have crippling trauma.
I will still hold that a general rule prohibiting this would be prudent and ethical. And if I were the owner of the Bills, I’d tell him that if he’s determined to play, he can do it someplace else.
Commotio cordis is very rare. When it does occur, it’s more likely to be a young athlete (teens, pre-teens) with a less developed chest structure, and it’s more likely to be baseball or hockey, so, logically and ethically, when it comes to commotio cordis, we know the sports and which athletes to ban.
Presumably, Hamlin’s doctors evaluated his chest as well as his heart.
The world would be a completely different place, Jack, if, by some quirk of nature, you were the owner of the Bills. There’s no end of speculation as to what other ways the world would look. Kind af like a Murakami novel.
Commotio cordis is very rare. When it does occur, it’s more likely to be a young athlete (teens, pre-teens) with a less developed chest structure, and it’s more likely to be baseball or hockey, so, logically and ethically, when it comes to commotio cordis, we know the sports and which athletes to ban.
Presumably, Hamlin’s doctors evaluated his chest as well as his heart.