TULSA, Okla. — An Oklahoma State basketball manager is sharing how CPR saved his life, as NFL player Damar Hamlin is advocating for people to know the life-saving technique.
As many around the world saw play out on live TV, Hamlin collapsed from cardiac arrest on the football field in January. Doctors said one of the reasons he survived was because of the CPR he received immediately after he collapsed.
DeShawn Caldwell, a manager for the Oklahoma State basketball team, said Hamlin’s collapse hit close to home, because Caldwell had a similar, scary experience in high school. Caldwell collapsed during a basketball practice and was in a coma for three days.
Caldwell said he had just finished running laps, and doesn’t remember much after that.
“As we were finishing up, we got into a group huddle. Coach usually talks to us at the end of practice ... and they said I took one breath and just collapsed,” he said.
His coaches rushed to give him CPR, and Caldwell said he doesn’t think he’d be alive if it wasn’t for their quick thinking.
“It’s life or death with stuff like that, and if they weren’t able to jump into action quick, and they would have had to wait around for EMSA to get through the building ... who knows how long it could have taken,” he said.
Caldwell was rushed to the hospital, where he was in a coma for three days. After he woke up, doctors told Caldwell he has an enlarged heart, something that was missed in routine physicals.
It was determined Caldwell needed surgery to get a heart defibrillator put into his body. If he were to collapse again, it would shock his heart back into rhythm.
Hamlin’s campaign, the #3forHeart CPR Challenge, urges people to learn hands-only CPR, and is pointing people to the American Heart Association to promote the technique that saved his and Caldwell’s life.
Susan Brehm, executive director of the American Heart Association Tulsa, said knowing CPR is crucial because of how often cardiac arrest happens at home.
“Seventy percent of the time, cardiac arrest happens in the home,” Brehm said. “So the chances of you being the one to save a loved one, a parent, a brother, a grandmother is more likely than seeing someone on the street doing it.”
It takes two steps to perform hands-only CPR
- The first step is to look at someone and say “call 911.” If you’re alone, call 911 and put the phone on speaker.
- The second step is to interlock your hands, put the palm of your hands on the person’s chest, lock your elbows and push down with all your weight over and over. Brehm suggests pushing down to the beat of “Stayin’ Alive”, “Baby Shark” or “Macarena”.
“Our goal is to get at least one person in every home that knows CPR and can teach it to their families,” said Brehm. “What we know is it saves lives. It’s something simple that all of us can do, whether you’re 80 years old or 8 years old.
Although Caldwell’s diagnosis ended his own athletic career, he said he plans to pursue a career as a coach.
“I just try to take every moment, and try not to take for granted anything I do in sports or in life,” said Caldwell. “I also try to preach that to athletes. This could be your last game, last practice so you always want to go hard. You always think ‘I’m tired today, I could do it tomorrow’ and sometimes there’s not a tomorrow.”