Through his foundation, Hamlin is helping bring awareness to CPR training and efforts to provide AEDs (automated external defibrillators) to youth sports, which can help save lives. The NFL also announced last month that it is partnering with other major sports leagues in a campaign to help prevent fatal cardiac arrests among high school students.
Hamlin told reporters on Tuesday that he views his NFL comeback as another way he can help motivate himself and others to overcome their circumstances.
“My heart is still in it. My heart is still in the game,” he said. “I love the game. It’s something I want to prove to myself — not nobody else. I just want to show people that fear is a choice. You can keep going in something without having the answers and without knowing what’s at the end of the tunnel. Or you might feel anxious, you might feel any type of way, but you keep putting that right foot in front of the left one and you keep going. I want to stand for that.”
Hamlin said he’s thankful for every day since suffering the rare injury and knows he has more to offer.
“Not to sound cliché, but the wild moment is every day just being able to wake up and take deep breaths and live a peaceful life,” he said. “To have a family, to have people around me that love me and care about me, and for those people to still have me in their lives. You know they almost lost me. I died on national TV in front of the whole world. So, I see it from all perspectives. For them to still have me around, and for me to still have them, it goes both ways. And I lost a bunch of people in my life, and I know a bunch of people who have lost people in their lives, and I know that feeling. So that right there is just the biggest blessing of it all. For me to still have my people, and for my people to still have me.”