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Regardless of whether you saw it live on Monday Night Football or in a clip shown after the fact, it's pretty safe to say that we have all seen the video of Damar Hamlin collapsing while his Buffalo Bills were taking on the Cincinnati Bengals January 2nd during Monday Night Football. In the instant-info world of social media that we live in, updates were coming quickly... first that he was revived, then on a ventilator, then off the ventilator. Next thing you knew he was being discharged from a Cincinnati hospital and on the way to a Buffalo hospital. After a short stay in a Buffalo hospital, he was discharged and going home. And then he showed up at practice to root on his fellow Bills and a few days after that, he showed up to a Buffalo game to root his team on from a suite!
To say he made a quick and miraculous recovery is an understatement! And for some, it was also too much to believe and grounds for a conspiracy theory.
My head about exploded one day when I opened up Twitter and saw what was trending at the moment. To sum it up, there were a group of people that believed- truly believed- that Damar Hamlin died on the field during Monday Night Football and that everything that happened after was just a cover-up by the NFL. They believed that his heart stopped from getting "the jab," which was the "true" reason he collapsed on the field. They believed the NFL lied about the amazing first responders that actually did safe his life. They believed that the man shown at the game in a suite rooting on the Bills was not Damar Hamlin; rather it was someone that the NFL had pose as Hamlin, all because you could not see his face. And they were an insistent bunch.
And they were wrong!
Yesterday afternoon, a video was released to (HOPEFULLY) quiet the conspiracy theorists. The video is of Damar Hamlin himself... not a "stand-in," not old video... it's a new video of Damar Hamlin thanking the team that saved his life and in true Damar Hamlin fashion, talking about giving back. And it's WONDERFUL to watch!
Hopefully this will quiet the theorists once and for all. It's GREAT to see Damar Hamlin looking so well!