The New Normal: Commotio Cordis Makes A Dramatic Entrance Into American Football

Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field after suffering a heart attack shortly after being roughly tackled by another player who made contact with his chest area. Dr Peter McCullough described it as ‘blunt force trauma’.

Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest and will not make a full recovery

He is currently critical. We wish him a full recovery, though a full recovery may not happen, sadly.

Brian Sutterer, MD, wasted no time in diagnosing commotio cordis, whilst dismissing any link to vaccination:

“What we saw happen tonight is not related to any sort of vaccines, this is almost certainly something called commotio cordis.”

Wow. Minutes after the event this was recorded. I presume he wasn’t even in attendance. How can he be so sure? Especially as commotio cordis does not appear to be a risk factor in American football, whereas in sports where a player can suffer a very sudden and localised sharp blunt force trauma to the chest due to the impact of an object travelling at high speed, it is a risk, albeit a very small one. Being shoulder barged by another player does not appear, or at least did not appear, until now, to present the right kind of blunt force trauma necessary to initiate commotio cordis.

Commotio cordis occurs when a person is hit in the chest and that impact triggers a dramatic change in the rhythm of their heart.

The blow could come from an object, such as a baseball or hockey puck, and may not seem especially serious in the moment. However, commotio cordis is often fatal.

Risk factors for commotio cordis

Playing any sport where you’re at risk for blunt trauma to the chest increases your chances of commotio cordis. Some of the sports that are most likely to result in commotio cordis include:

• baseball

• cricket

• hockey

• lacrosse

• softball

People who engage in full-contact martial arts are also at higher risk.

Diagnosed cases of commotio cordis are unusual. In the United States, fewer than 30 events are reported each year. More cases may occur annually but aren’t reported as commotio cordis due to poor public understanding of the condition.

The blunt force trauma needs to be very sudden and very localised, it would seem, consistent with being hit by a fast moving object, or a fist:

Cases likely attributable to commotio cordis have been described for hundreds of years.[2]  Some of the earliest reports may relate to legends like Dim Mak, an ancient Chinese martial art technique to cause death by a carefully directed blow, christened “the touch of death.”  Most cases currently reported involve young athletes playing sports.

Etiology

Commotio cordis most commonly results from an impact to the left chest with a hardball (e.g., a baseball) during sports activity. The sudden focal distortion of the myocardium results in ventricular fibrillation, causing sudden cardiac arrest in an otherwise structurally normal heart. It is distinct from a traumatic injury to the heart, like cardiac contusion or rupture or penetrating chest injuries.

Update:

IBT cites the Korey Stringer Institute:

"Commotio Cordis refers to the sudden arrhythmic death caused by a low/mild chest wall impact. Commotio Cordis is seen mostly in athletes between the ages of 8 and 18 who are partaking in sports with projectiles such as baseballs, hockey pucks, or lacrosse balls. These projectiles can strike the athletes in the middle of the chest with a low impact but enough to cause the heart to enter an arrhythmia. Martial arts is a sport in which a strike of a hand can also cause the heart to change its rhythm. Without immediate CPR and defibrillation, the prognosis of commotio cordis is not very good. This condition is extremely dangerous with rare survival."

Damar Hamlin is 24 years old, he suffered a routine impact which happens a million times probably every year in American football. He was not playing cricket, baseball, hockey or lacrosse. He was not hit by a hard ball or hockey puck. The chances that he suffered commotio cordis, already an extremely rare event, are vanishingly small, but not impossible of course.