The life-threatening situation that played out at Cincinnati’s Paycor Stadium on Monday night involving Bills safety Damar Hamlin is an event no one will soon forget. But if any solace can be taken from the tense scene that unfolded, because of the painstaking efforts and planning of the NFL, every league stadium is equipped with a multitiered emergency action plan that accounts for even the smallest details. It includes multiple specialized physicians and trainers, two EMT paramedic crews, airway management physicians and neurotrauma consultants. There is even a dentist and eye doctor present as part of a medical staff that eclipses 30 on the day of a game. Or, as Dr. Navdeep Singh, the Raiders’ chief medical officer, explained during a behind-the-scenes look in December at Allegiant Stadium’s medical and emergency setup: ‘I think, as someone who practices critical care medicine, you can’t find most emergency rooms in hospitals that are as well-equipped as an NFL stadium is on game day.’ From formulating the best route to transport injured players to a local hospital to identifying a nearby pharmacy able to accommodate medication to having every player’s detailed medical history at their fingertips, the NFL leaves no stone unturned in preparing for situations like the one involving the 24-year-old Buffalo safety. The medical team, Singh said, has to be ready to handle any major head injury or catastrophic form of illness, from cardiac arrest to heat exhaustion to trauma to the abdomen, to name a few.

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