Damar Hamlin, an NFL player for the Buffalo Bills who plays as a second-year safety suffered cardiac arrest while on the field. Out of respect, Electronic Arts (EA) will be removing the CPR celebration effect after a win in the Madden NFL 23 game.
Real-Life CPR on the Field
The Monday Night Football game was between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals on January 2nd. Damar Hamlin was tackled by Tee Higgins, the opposing team's wide receiver. Hamlin collapsed after the move.
The Buffalo Bill's medical team immediately tended to Hamlin, performing CPR before an ambulance arrived, which then took him to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center for critical care, as mentioned in Engadget.
Hamlin is still recovering from the life-threatening incident, but he is feeling better. He tweeted that he was headed home to Buffalo on Tuesday and that he was still doing a bunch of tests, along with a hashtag #3strong.
A spokesperson from EA Sports said that they are already taking steps to remove the Madden NFL 23 CPR celebration in the next few days, which shows the game's characters doing chest compressions and shocking another player after he pretends to faint.
EA Has a Lot to Clean Up
Electronic Arts have had a busy month. Although removing the CPR celebration is a good gesture out of respect for Hamlin, they also have previous issues to resolve like the corrupted saved files from the game.
Players complained about the issue, which appeared to stem from the game's database storage. EA said that around 60% of the Madden NFL 23 players may never recover the saved files that were corrupted, according to Ars Technica.
The issue with the Madden NFL 23 Connected Franchise Mode continued after EA announced that the bug has been fixed and players can play CFM without an issue. However, there were confirmed instances of CFM saved file corruption the same day EA said it was fine.
EA issued an apology saying that they knew how important the franchise was to the players. Still, they will only be able to recover around 40% of the saved files from a backup and are still working on the corruption issue in the game.
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The Unintentional CPR Celebration on the Field
Alex Highsmith, a linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers performed the same CPR celebration just six days after Damar Hamlin experienced a cardiac arrest. Highsmith clarified that the move had nothing to do with what happened to Hamlin.
The game in question was a match between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns. After sacking Deshaun Watson, Highsmith lay down on the field and DeMarvin Leal jokingly performed chest compressions to "revive" him, as mentioned in Yahoo.
Of course, this was scrutinized on social media after a user posted a video of the celebration move. Some believed that the action was distasteful, while others defended Highsmith saying that they have been doing it for years.
Highsmith stated that he didn't want people to think of him that way and think that he was doing anything. He added that he would never want to do it intentionally, apologizing profusely for the unintentional celebration.
