Troy Aikman & Joe Buck on Damar Hamlin: ‘Life & Death Matter’ on ESPN

“To watch what we did tonight was hard on everybody. Prayers are with Damar Hamlin and his family." - Cowboys ex Troy Aikman of "Monday Night Football''

FRISCO - Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin sustained a horrifying injury on “Monday Night Football,” a tackle of Bengals wideout Tee Higgins causing the 24-year-old safety to collapse after suffering cardiac arrest.

The awful scene unfolding on live TV put ESPN’s Joe Buck in the unenviable position of trying to report and comment as the evening went on, with the game eventually being suspended by the NFL.

Buck and Aikman - the legendary Dallas Cowboys QB who experienced numerous dangerous injuries during his Hall of Fame career - spoke somberly as they watched CPR being performed on Hamlin before he was taken away by ambulance … all the whole players on both teams kneeling in prayer and weeping.

Said Aikman: "No one's experienced anything like this … it really is unprecedented …  

“The gravity of the situation became very clear very, very soon.”

Buck said he was “sick to my stomach, adding, “It’s about the Hamlin family and what they feel and that’s the focus, but this went from a sports story to a news story from a sporting event to a matter of life and death like that.”

Aikman mentioned the familial atmosphere of a football team as an important note.

"The amount of time that you spend with your teammates during the season,” he said, “is more than you spend with your family. … The relationships are real and go on long after you're done playing the game, I can speak to that. 

“To watch what we did tonight was hard on everybody. Prayers are with Damar and his family."

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