Scary NFL Scene Spurs Swampscott Middle Schooler To Action

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — Swampscott 12-year-old Cash Christison had the same scary thoughts run through his head that most watching did on Jan. 2 when Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin crumbled to the Cincinnati turf shortly after making a tackle on Monday Night Football.

"I watched the hit and then I saw him hit the ground," he told Patch. "I was thinking that there is no way that can be good. I thought it might have been a concussion or something. When he wasn't really moving and the ambulance came on the field I walked away from the TV because I didn't want to see what was next."

While the immediate aftermath was stark and full of sorrow, the news of Hamlin's recovery and release from the hospital this week was uplifting, with the quick work of athletic trainers and the presence of an automated external defibrillator on the field credited with reviving Hamlin after he went into cardiac arrest and helping prevent a catastrophic outcome.

Cash and his mother, Brendyl, are now looking to give anyone who suffers a similar Commotio Cordis event on a local youth playing field the same fighting chance at survival and a return to a normal life that all the resources of the National Football League afforded Hamlin.

They started a GoFundMe page aimed at raising money to purchase AEDs and provide training for youth coaches and teams.

"When you are traveling these fields don't always have them," Brendyl said. "If you have a big showcase they will, or most gyms and facilities might have one, but (in youth sports) you travel to a lot of random fields and it's just the coaches and the parents at the fields."

With an AED costing an average of $1,300, the Christisons have set a goal of raising $10,000 for the purchase of at least 10 of them. The GoFundMe can be found here.

"If this were to happen again we could maybe stop someone from getting severely hurt," said Cash, a Swampscott Middle School sixth-grader who plays basketball, and soccer, and on a Nxt Era Panthers flag football program that has traveled across the country, of his reason behind wanting to start the campaign.

"We're hoping that some of the money raised can give at least league directors and as many coaches as possible an AED," Brendyl said. "Other than at the high school we find that most of the coaches at Cass's level aren't really trained in how to use an AED or even really how to perform CPR."

Cash said he and his friends talked about the shocking scene at school the next day after the Monday night game and even joined together in prayer for Hamlin's recovery.

The hope of having more AEDs available at more sporting events is that should anything like what happened to Hamlin happen there, the prayers of that player's coaches, teammates, friends and family members will be answered.

"When something like that happens time is precious," Brendyl said. "You need to have the AED there, or at least you need to be able to start CPR immediately, to give the person a chance until emergency services can get there."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)