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Buffalo Bills trainer Denny Kellington saved Damar Hamlin’s life on the field, head coach says
CNN
—
Just seconds after Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field from cardiac arrest on Monday, medical personnel swarmed onto the field in an immediate response that has been widely credited for the player’s steps toward recovery.
But one Bills team member in particular – assistant athletic trainer Denny Kellington – has been praised by head coach Sean McDermott for “saving Damar’s life.”
Bills offensive lineman Dion Dawkins said in a tweet Thursday that it was Kellington who administered critical CPR to Hamlin, who doctors say lost his pulse on the field had to be immediately revived through resuscitation and defibrillation.
“For an assistant to find himself at that position and needing to take the action that he did and step up and take charge like he did – and there were others on the field as well – is nothing short of amazing,” McDermott said of Kellington during a news conference Thursday.
“And the courage that took – you talk about a real leader, a real hero in saving Damar’s life and just admire his strength.”
Hamlin was transported to the hospital, where he was sedated. On Thursday, his doctors announced Hamlin had started to awaken. Though he remains critically ill and on a ventilator, his medical team said the player is showing signs of “good neurologic recovery” and is making significant improvement.
The immediate response of Kellington and other medical personnel was vital to “not just saving his life, but his neurological function,” Dr. Timothy Pritts, one of Hamlin’s doctors at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, said Thursday.
In cardiac arrest, the heart is no longer pumping blood, which means no oxygen is traveling to the brain or other organs. Seconds matter: The longer a person goes without oxygen, the chances of organ damage increase, and the chances of survival decrease. CPR mimics a pumping heart, which keeps blood flowing, and a defibrillator shocks the heart, which can cause it to start beating again.
Kellington has been a member of the Bills’ training staff since 2017. Prior to joining the team, he was an athletic trainer at Syracuse University for 11 years, six of which were spent as the head athletic trainer for the football team, according to the university and Kellington’s LinkedIn. He also previously served as a graduate student athletic trainer at Ohio State University, the school confirmed to CNN.
– Source:
CNN
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If you don’t know how to perform CPR, watch this
In audio obtained by CNN of medical personnel who responded from the sidelines, medical teams can be heard urgently requesting everyone to respond the minute Hamlin collapsed at 8:55 p.m. ET.
At 8:55 p.m. ET, when Hamlin hit the ground, someone can be heard saying, “Go over to the cot. I don’t like how he went down.”
A few seconds later, another voice says, “We’re going to need everybody. All call, all call.” Within the minute, several other cries go out for all personnel to rush to the field.
Between 9:12 and 9:20 p.m., personnel can be heard requesting another medic and emergency equipment for the ambulance.
The rapid response of medical teams that night has been repeatedly praised by NFL officials, Bills team members and physicians.
“It’s certainly not an exaggeration to say that the skilled and the immediate response by all of these talented caregivers prevented a very tragic outcome at that moment,” NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills said Wednesday.
Sills said that the league holds drills before the season to prepare for medical emergencies and also holds briefing meetings among medical teams before every game.
McDermott also opened the Bills’ news conference Thursday with a word of thanks for “the first responders on the field this past Monday evening and the medical teams of the Bills, the Bengals and the staff, doctors and nurses at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center for their work and their care.”
– Source:
CNN
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Hear from Colts player who visited Hamlin in the hospital
Chase Elliott won’t celebrate Pocono win after Denny Hamlin disqualified for failing postrace inspection
Chase Elliott left Pocono Raceway as a third-place finisher and learned when he landed home in Georgia that he had been declared the race winner.
For now, at least.
Joe Gibbs Racing can still appeal NASCAR’s decision to strip Denny Hamlin’s victory and teammate Kyle Busch’s runner-up finish on Sunday after their Toyotas failed inspections. Hamlin was the first Cup winner to be disqualified since April 17, 1960, when Emanuel Zervakis’ victory at Wilson Speedway in North Carolina was thrown out because of an oversized fuel tank.
The Toyotas were shipped to NASCAR’s research and development center in North Carolina for further evaluation and — depending on potential appeals — it could take a week to sort out the winner or other penalties levied against JGR.
Elliott was gifted his fourth win of the season, without the Hendrick Motorsports driver ever leading a lap Sunday in his No. 9 Chevrolet. The series points leader will take the win, even if he doesn’t feel great about achieving it without a checkered flag.
“I was probably just kind of more surprised by it than anything,” Elliott said Monday. “I don’t think any driver wants to win that way. I certainly don’t.”
Hamlin — who had already zipped his young daughter around the track on a victory lap — and the rest of the field had long left Pocono when the NASCAR inspection team found issues in both Toyotas that affected the aerodynamics.
“There really was no reason why there was some material that was somewhere it shouldn’t have been. And that does basically come down to a DQ,” NASCAR Cup Series managing director Brad Moran said Sunday night.
Team owner Joe Gibbs said Sunday he was “shocked” by the ruling and his organization planned “to review every part of the process that led to this situation.”
Pushing the edge of the rulebook — creatively or illegally — has been a part of NASCAR’s culture since its inception. But NASCAR toughened its punishments entering the 2019 season in a bolder bid to squash cheating. The biggest shift came in inspections, which nailed the JGR drivers on Sunday. NASCAR ensured postrace inspections would take place at the track instead of midweek at the sanctioning body’s research and development center outside Charlotte, North Carolina.
Winning teams found in violation of the rules before 2019 were penalized with postrace fines, point deductions and/or suspensions. But drivers didn’t have victories taken away from them until then.
For example, Joey Logano kept a 2017 win in Richmond even after a midweek teardown of his car at the R&D center showed his Team Penske team broke rules. Logano, though, could not count the win toward postseason consideration.
Hamlin won’t be so lucky. He lost this third win of the season, his record seventh victory at Pocono and a 49th career win that would have tied him on NASCAR’s career list with three-time champion Tony Stewart.
No matter NASCAR’s final judgment, Hamlin will likely stand as the winner among multiple gambling sites. FanDuel said Monday the house rules state bets are settled on the result of the podium presentation regardless of any subsequent disqualifications. Where things gets murky is with fantasy players.
FanDuel said all NASCAR fantasy contests are settled the following day.
The breakdown went like this:
• Elliott received 43 points for finishing first after the postrace inspections.
• Kyle Busch received five points for finishing in 36th place as a result of failing postrace inspection.
• Hamlin earned six fantasy points for finishing 35th.
NASCAR could hit JGR with stiffer points penalties and fines than Zervakis faced in 1960. The Associated Press reported that officials held up Zervakis’ purse of $1,275 after he won the race without a pit stop and “carried about a half-gallon of gasoline more than is considered stock in the technical ratings of his 1960 Chevrolet.” Joe Weatherly earned the win.
Elliott, 27, the 2020 Cup Series champion and NASCAR’s most popular driver, said he was moving on from Pocono as if he did indeed finish third. And he said he won’t ask for the trophy.
“I’m not going to celebrate someone’s misfortune,” Elliott said. “That doesn’t seem right to me. I crossed the line third. That’s kind of how I’m looking at it.”
DraftKings Sportsbook, however, said it will pay out bets on both Hamlin and Elliott.
DraftKings Sportsbook director Johnny Avello said house rules state all bets will be settled “based on the unofficial results sent out by NASCAR” but also notes that if there is a “change in the official race result, all previous winners will stand and new winners will also be settled as won.”
Caesars Sportsbook said all of its bets were settled according to the official order of finish, with Elliott as the winner and Hamlin and Busch finishing 35th and 36th, respectively.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
Chase Elliott given win at Pocono after Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch disqualified
LONG POND, Pa. — NASCAR stripped Denny Hamlin of his win at Pocono Raceway when his No. 11 Toyota failed inspection and was disqualified, awarding Chase Elliott the Cup Series victory.
Joe Gibbs Racing had Hamlin’s car and runner-up Kyle Busch’s No. 18 Toyota both disqualified. Hamlin lost his record seventh victory at Pocono and his third win of the season. Busch led a race-high 63 laps.
NASCAR believed the last time it disqualified an apparent winner was April 17, 1960, when Emanuel Zervakis’ victory at Wilson Speedway in North Carolina was thrown out because of an oversized fuel tank.
The penalties can be appealed and both Toyotas were sent to NASCAR’s research and development center in North Carolina.
“There was some issues discovered that affect aero in the vehicle,” NASCAR Cup Series managing director Brad Moran said. “There really was no reason why there was some material that was somewhere it shouldn’t have been. And that does basically come down to a DQ.”
Moran said the parts in question were the front fascia — essentially the nose cone — and final decisions “should be sorted out by next week.”
Elliott, who had finished third, was given his fourth win of the season. He never led a lap in the No. 9 Chevrolet.
Moran said the inspection “rules have tightened up” with the introduction this season of a new car. NASCAR’s newest version is essentially a kit car. Teams get all the same pieces from varying vendors and have detailed instructions regarding how to put it together.
“We don’t want to be here talking about this problem,” Moran said. “But the teams and the owners and everybody was well aware that this new car was going to be kept with some pretty tight tolerances. There’s some areas that all the teams are well aware that we can not go down the path that we had in the past with the other car.”
The failures marred what had been a banner day for JGR.
Hamlin had seemingly won for the third time this season and passed Hall of Fame driver Jeff Gordon for most wins at Pocono with seven. Hamlin swept two races at Pocono in his rookie season in 2006, and added wins in 2009, 2010, 2019 and 2020. Now, he remains tied with the four-time NASCAR champion.
Hamlin had plenty to handle from the start, when the pole sitter tagged the wall on the opening lap. He recovered — at 400 miles on the 2 1/2-mile tri-oval there’s plenty of racing ahead — then had to watch Busch lead the majority of the race. Oh, then there was this thorny issue of settling a lingering score with Ross Chastain.
Chastain wrecked Hamlin two times in a month earlier this season — Hamlin counted two more times from last season — and was fed-up with the aggressive driving of the watermelon farmer. Hamlin refused to give his rival an inch off a restart at Pocono and forced Chastain into the wall with 16 laps left in the race. Chastain slammed the wall and triggered a wreck that collected several drivers, including winless Kevin Harvick, who is fighting for a playoff spot.
“What did you want me to do? What did you expect me to do,” Hamlin asked in the immediate aftermath.
Chastain, who has two wins this season driving for Trackhouse Racing, sheepishly understood comeuppance was due.
“I think that’s something that’s been owed to me for a few months now,” Chastain said.
Hamlin also lost his tie with former teammate Tony Stewart on NASCAR’s career wins list with 49.
“We’ve just been good friends and he’s certainly someone that I look up to from a talent standpoint,” Hamlin said. “He was the guy that for 36 races was a threat to win, and that’s what I hope to be some day.”
Hamlin is pretty close: He’s a three-time Daytona 500 champion and part owner of 23XI Racing with Michael Jordan. About the only blemish on his resume is the championship he’s failed to win — and the first DQ of his Cup career.
Hamlin’s young daughter burst into tears of joy and he sent her to retrieve the checkered flag. Taylor Hamlin clutched the flag as she slid through the passenger’s side window and took a victory lap around Pocono with dad at the wheel.
TY GAME
Ty Gibbs finished 16th for 23XI Racing in his first career Cup start subbing for the injured Kurt Busch.
Busch suffered a head injury during a hard hit Saturday in qualifying and was not cleared to race by NASCAR’s medical staff. That opened the door for the 19-year-old Gibbs.
In a pinch, the grandson of Joe Gibbs wore Busch’s firesuit and Hamlin’s shoes.
“I never thought I’d race with these guys,” Gibbs said. “It was just cool being next to them on the track. To 10-year-old Ty, that means a lot.”
Grandpa Joe was pretty proud. “He was discouraged that he couldn’t get more out of it,” Gibbs said. “I think he realizes how tough it is.”
NO DEAL
Gibbs remained concerned JGR has yet to reach a new contact with Kyle Busch.
“We had a couple of companies, we thought [were in] that wound up to be disappointments for us,” Gibbs said. “But it is hard and it is discouraging.”
UP NEXT
IndyCar and NASCAR share next weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. IndyCar races Saturday on the road course; NASCAR races Sunday.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Coca-Cola 600 results: Denny Hamlin survives two overtime restarts to win wild war of attrition in Charlotte
CONCORD, North Carolina — Of the 37 cars that started the 63rd running of the Coca-Cola 600, the vast majority of them ended up either torn up, chewed up, spun out or turned over — which included Denny Hamlin. And in spite of all that, it was Hamlin who took home arguably the most difficult edition of NASCAR’s longest race ever seen.
After taking four fresh tires on his final pit stop heading into overtime, Denny Hamlin emerged from a four-wide battle for the lead on the first restart, then held off a charge from Kyle Busch in double overtime to win the Coke 600 for the first time in his career. With his win, Hamlin became the 12th driver in NASCAR history to win all three of the sport’s majors — the Daytona 500, the Coca-Cola 600, and the Southern 500 — and he did so in what was the longest race in NASCAR history at 413 laps and just over 600 miles.
Coca-Cola 600 unofficial results
- #11 – Denny Hamlin
- #18 – Kyle Busch
- #4 – Kevin Harvick
- #14 – Chase Briscoe
- #20 – Christopher Bell
- #8 – Tyler Reddick
- #47 – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- #34 – Michael McDowell
- #5 – Kyle Larson
- #48 – Alex Bowman
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Denny Hamlin inches closer to unwanted record
Denny Hamlin got off to a rough start in the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season, but he found victory lane on Sunday at Richmond Raceway.
Despite a 2021 NASCAR Cup Series regular season that saw him record 13 top five finishes, including eight in the first nine races, it took Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin until the first race of the playoffs to find victory lane.
This season, the three-time Daytona 500 winner got off to a disastrous start. For the first time in 17 Daytona 500 attempts, he failed to finish the “Great American Race”, and through six races, he had finished no higher than 13th place. He sat in 22nd in the point standings.
But on Sunday afternoon at Richmond Raceway, Hamlin turned his season around, becoming the seventh different winner in seven races in 2022.
The win was the 47th of his Cup Series career, breaking a tie for 17th on the all-time list with the late Buck Baker.
However, it brought the 41-year-old Chesterfield, Virginia native one win closer to an unwanted record: most wins in Cup Series history without winning a title.
That record currently belongs to the late Junior Johnson, who earned 50 victories in his Cup Series career. But Johnson never competed full-time; in fact, in only seven of his 14 seasons of competition did he compete in more than half the schedule.
In terms of drivers who competed full-time, no driver has won more races than Hamlin has without winning a title.
Hamlin became the winningest non-champion among full-time drivers during his seven-win 2020 season, which he started with 37 victories. With his third win of the year at Homestead-Miami Speedway, he tied Mark Martin atop the all-time list with 40. He surpassed Martin with win number 41 at Pocono Raceway.
While Hamlin has won a race in 2022, he has not yet officially locked himself into the playoffs, as there could still very well be more than 16 different race winners in the regular season; there are still 19 races to go before the postseason. In that case, the tiebreaker among single-race winners would become points.
Of the seven winners so far, the driver of the #11 Toyota ranks lowest in points; he sits in 20th place in the standings.
There is one streak Denny Hamlin didn’t end
Denny Hamlin ended a 12-race streak of NASCAR Cup Series races won by drivers under the age of 30. But there is one streak he didn’t end.
At his home track of Richmond Raceway, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin earned his first victory of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season, becoming the seventh different driver to win through the first seven races of the 36-race season.
Hamlin passed Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron with just five laps remaining in Sunday’s 400-lap Toyota Owners 400 at the four-turn, 0.75-mile (1.207-kilometer) oval in Richmond, Virginia, and he won the race by 0.552 seconds over Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick in second place. Hamlin led only these five laps en route to victory lane.
As a result, the 41-year-old ended a record streak of 12 consecutive races that had been won by drivers under the age of 30, going back to Bubba Wallace’s — and 23XI Racing’s — first career win at Talladega Superspeedway early last October.
In fact, Hamlin’s win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway late last September had been the most recent win by a driver not in his 20s.
After Wallace, then 27, won at Talladega Superspeedway, 29-year-old Kyle Larson won at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, Texas Motor Speedway, and Kansas Speedway. Alex Bowman, 28, then won at Martinsville Speedway before Larson capped off the season with a championship-winning victory at Phoenix Raceway.
To open up the 2022 season, 23-year-old Austin Cindric won the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway, netting him his first career victory. Larson then won at Auto Club Speedway before Bowman won at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Chase Briscoe, 27, then scored the first win of his career at Phoenix Raceway before Byron, 24, won at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Ross Chastain, 29, then became the season’s third first-time winner by winning at Circuit of the Americas, delivering Trackhouse Racing Team their first ever win.
But while Hamlin ended this 12-race streak, there is another age-related Cup Series winning streak which he did not end.
We still haven’t seen a driver in his 30s win a race since A.J. Allmendinger, then 39, won at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course last August, delivering Kaulig Racing their first ever victory.
Between that win and Hamlin’s win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, five races were contested. Ryan Blaney, then 27, earned back-to-back wins at Michigan International Speedway and Daytona International Speedway before Hamlin, then 40, won at Darlington Raceway. Martin Truex Jr., 41, then took the checkered flag at Richmond Raceway before Larson did so at Bristol Motor Speedway.
This means that 19 consecutive races have been won by drivers not in their 30s.
But the craziness doesn’t stop there.
When he earned his historic win at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course last August, Allmendinger was a part-time driver. A full-time driver in his 30s still hasn’t won since mid-July.
Aric Almirola remains the most recent full-time driver in his 30s to find victory lane. Then 37, he did so on Sunday, July 18, 2021, at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Between his win and Allmendinger’s, Larson was the only winner, winning at Watkins Glen International, though there was notably a three-week break during this stretch.
So in the last 21 races, no full-time driver in his 30s has found victory lane.
Who will bring an end to this streak, and will it end this weekend? Martinsville Speedway is scheduled to host the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 this Saturday, April 9. Fox Sports 1 is set to broadcast the race live beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET, so don’t miss out on the opportunity to start your free trial of FuboTV today!
Siberian Cave Yields Oldest Fossils Belonging to Enigmatic Human Species
The Denisovans, a mysterious group of extinct hominins closely related to Neanderthals, didn’t leave much fossil evidence behind. A fresh dig at their former stomping grounds in Siberia has now yielded three new fossils—the oldest yet found of this species.
Katerina Douka, an evolutionary anthropologist from the University of Vienna, and her colleagues found the fossils in Denisova Cave, a natural shelter located in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia. The scientists were studying the oldest layers in the cave, which up until now had failed to produce a single human fossil. A total of five human fossil fragments were recovered: three belonging to Denisovans, one from a Neanderthal, and one that could not be identified. The largest of these fragments measures no larger than 1.6 inches (4 centimeters) long.
Remarkably, this small but precious handful of fossils were found amid a jumble of 3,791 animal bone fragments. The researchers used a biomolecular method known as peptide fingerprinting to identify the bones, as it was not possible to do so through manual inspection. The five bones contained collagen consistent with the peptide profiles of humans (peptides are the building blocks of proteins), allowing for the identification (as a reminder, Denisovans and Neanderthals are humans).
“Finding one new human bone would have been cool, but five? This exceeded my wildest dreams,” Samantha Brown, a co-author of the study and junior group leader at the University of Tübingen, said in a Max Planck Institute statement.
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Denisova Cave is an “amazing place” when it comes to the preservation of DNA, and “we have now reconstructed genomes from some of the oldest and best-preserved human fossils,” said Diyendo Massilani, a geneticist from the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, in the release. The team found enough DNA to reconstruct mitochondrial genomes, allowing them to confirm the bones as belonging to Denisovans and Neanderthals. A paper detailing this discovery has been published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
The layer containing the Denisovan bones was dated to roughly 200,000 years old. Previous Denisovan fossils were dated to between 122,000 and 194,000 years old, so these are now the oldest. The lone Neanderthal bone was dated to between 130,000 and 150,000 years ago. The Altai mountains appear to “be an overlapping zone for both Denisovan and Neanderthal groups for over 150,000 years, witnessing and possibly facilitating population [interbreeding] as well as sustaining distinct hominin populations over this long period,” according to the paper.
The three new Denisovan fossils add to the six already discovered, including a finger bone from which DNA was extracted and a mandible found in a cave on the Tibetan Plateau—the first and only Denisovan fossil found outside of Siberia. Denisovans were closely related to Neanderthals, and they interbred with modern humans prior to going extinct some 50,000 to 30,000 years ago. Traces of Denisovan DNA exist within the genomes of modern southeast Asian and Oceanian populations.
As the scientists write in their study, “a wealth of archaeological material” in the form of stone tools and animal remains were found within the Denisovan layer. It’s the first time that archaeological evidence has been definitively linked to these hominins, allowing for new insights into their behavior.
Interestingly, the style of the recovered stone tools, like scraping tools for working animal hides, could not be matched to any known lithic tradition. Living near the Anui river and occupying the caves during a warm period, the Denisovans hunted bison, deer, gazelle, antelope, and woolly rhinos, in a subsistence pattern that lasted for thousands of years, as the researchers point out.
These three Denisovan bones will likely produce more science in the years to come, as will Denisova Cave in general. Slowly but very methodically, we’re uncovering more about these remarkable humans.
More: Scientists Have Discovered a Hotspot of Denisovan Ancestors.