Tee Higgins On Handling Damar Hamlin Situation: 'I'm In A Good Place Right Now'
CINCINNATI — Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins spoke with the media for the first time after Damar Hamlin collapsed on Monday night.
Higgins appeared in good spirits and had a conversation with Hamlin's mother that helped ease his mind.
"They said everything is ok. He's doing good. So I'm in a good place right now." Higgins told reporters about the conversation. "Telling me she's thinking of me, praying for me, things like that. She was telling me that he's ok and just all the good positive stuff."
The Bills' safety tackled Tee Higgins in the first quarter of Monday night's game, and then Hamlin immediately collapsed after getting up from the play.
Paramedics administered CPR and an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) on the field for nearly 10 minutes before transporting him to University of Cincinnati Medical Center.
Higgins gave his perspective of the whole scene.
"At first," Higgins began. "Me being a football player, I'm thinking he just flopped, and I looked, and I seen what happened and I just turned my head and tried not to think about it. I knew it was something crazy, something tragic. It was hard. Obviously, I wasn't in a good place to play the rest of that game so I'm kind of glad we chose not to play."
The dynamic weapon has had a hard week but is ready to get back to work. Higgins is wrapping up a great year (73 catches, 1,022 yards, 7 TDs) and can stamp it at home on Sunday.
"It's been hard, but I'm a professional football player, at the end of the day," Higgins said. "So I have to shift my focus to the Ravens and be prepared to win this game. ... It's hard to forget about what happened, but at the end of the day, we are professional football players, we got a job to do, and we just gotta shift our focus."
On Monday night, fans immediately found a GoFundMe toy drive fundraiser that Hamlin started in 2020. The original goal was $2,500—as of this writing—the total had surpassed $7.1 million in donations. Click here to support.
The Bengals and Ravens clash at 1 p.m. ET this Sunday on CBS. Watch via fuboTV—start your free trial here.
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