Damar Hamlin Continues to Share His Story 3 Years After Near-Death Experience

Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin isn’t leaving the football field for the bright lights of Hollywood just yet, but he’s enjoyed pouring his own heart into his latest project, literally.

“I’ve had another acting gig before and I got a little experience through middle school,” Hamlin, who makes a cameo in this year’s Hallmark Channel’s Countdown to Christmas lineup, The More the Merrier, says. “I’ve earned a new respect for actors and just their craft and the dedication, the time, everything that it takes to get the masterpiece and the results that they get.”

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But this isn’t just any side project for Hamlin. The project hits home for Hamlin as it’s based on his own nearly fatal experience.

On Jan. 2, 2023, Hamlin went into cardiac arrest after sustaining a blunt force hit to the chest while making a tackle in a game on Monday Night Football against the Cincinnati Bengals. Medical staff from both teams worked on Hamlin by performing CPR for nine minutes while using a defibrillator to restore his heartbeat.

With the three-year anniversary of that life-changing moment coming up, Hamlin admits he’s still dealing with the emotions of the day every time before he takes the field.

“This is something I’m teaching my 10-year-old brother,” Hamlin says. “Fear is a real thing. We all experience fear. Like, everybody experiences fear. It can be more bad than good, because then you don’t know what to do with the fear. I think what makes people different is what you do with the fear. If you can persevere through the fear, you cannot let the fear handicap you because every human experiences fear, it’s a human emotion, to experience.”

Hamlin continues, “And so, I don’t want people to shy away from it. I really want people to embrace it, to know that it’s a real thing, and to know that everybody else is experiencing it too, in their own way. I think it’s just about what we do, and you have to know that. Everybody’s experiencing it and you can’t let it hinder you from getting done what you want to get done. I think that’s just a big sum up of my whole process.”

While he doesn’t have all the answers of how things have changed, Hamlin knows it’ll take awhile to sift through his thoughts as he tries to live in the moment.

“I’m honestly still in the phase of just figuring that out,” Hamlin says. I think I need like, 10 years before I’ll be able to truly say I have all the answers to that. I think right now I’m just in the moment of it all still, even nearing up on three years. I’m still in the moment, I’m still, sorting out all of the unique things and chaos that came my way, and I think I just was trying to navigate the world. But I think just being in the moment, staying present, just truly maximizing everything that I can around me, will propel me and allow me to have a better gist on that when it’s all said and done.”

The Incident has Transformed Hamlin into How He Lives His Life Today

“My life has truly just changed and it’ll forever be different,” explains Hamlin. “But reasons that I don’t shy away from. I feel like a deeper connection [to] my purpose and why I’m here and I let that community and I let that feeling, everything that I do as far as my actions and my movements, my partnerships, whatever I do, I truly allow God to just lead the way, and it’s been amazing so far. I’m thankful.”

The movie features five real-life members of Abbott’s HeartMates community and have experienced heart issues similar to Hamlin’s and have overcome everything from heart transplants to open heart surgery.

“They’re truly my inspiration,” Hamlin, who’s an ambassador for the program, says of the younger kids he’s working with. “They allowed me to feel related to, understood, and just seeing people at different phases of their life experiencing things that may be a little bit different to me, but we all relate in a way. It truly gives me my courage and inspiration to continue to just continue to keep going on with my work.”

Hamlin, who stays ‘extra prayed up’ since the hit, has gotten so close to some of the youth that he works with that they are a part of his new game day ritual.

“I call one of my HeartMates and just get a little bit of inspiration, get a little bit of motivation,” Hamlin says. “They always text me before the games. Zeke (who makes a cameo in the film) was the first draftee into the HeartMates program. He texts me before every game and just gives me that motivation. His text will be something like, ‘Man, no matter what, win, lose or draw, I appreciate you. You mean so much to me,’ and just kind of like that, bring me back down to earth and just realize that this is just a game, and I’m able to have things in my life that give me purpose even beyond the game of football, especially.”

And while Hamlin will never know why this rare incident happened to him, he’s done trying to ask, ‘why me?’ and embrace how his voice is now helping others.

“I always just try to find a positive outlook to keep myself going,” says Hamlin. There’s so many times in my life growing up that I was holding on to, so it kind of changed who I am as a person. But I understand how I was used in that moment.”