As the world prays for Buffalo Bills’ safety Damar Hamlin to make a recovery in a Cincinnati trauma unit, they are also finding out what Pittsburgh residents have known for years.

Damar Hamlin’s life is not defined by football, but rather as a caring son and a young man who made it his mission to make his community a better place for children while still in college.

There have been horrific injuries during NFL football games over the years, but none as emotional, scary and shocking enough as what took place Monday night.

During the first quarter of the Buffalo Bills at Cincinnati Bengals game, Hamlin made a tackle, jumped up, but then his body went limp as he collapsed. On national television, fans watched as paramedics performed CPR and players and coaches fought back emotion.

After an ambulance took Hamlin and his family to a local trauma center, the teams got together and decided to go to the locker rooms. Later, they postponed the game. The Bills stayed in quiet, stunned, as a team at the stadium until 12:21 a.m. when they loft on buses. The NFL announced the game would not be played this week out of respect for Hamlin’s condition and hopefully recovery.

Hamlin’s reputation, and the caring of Buffalo Bills fans, known as the Bills Mafia, and fans across the country, offered not only prayers, but donations to Hamlin’s foundation, the Chasing M’s Foundation.

Originally intended as a small toy drive in his neighborhood and to help his mother, Nina, who was starting a daycare center. The donations went from $2,500 to close to $4.5 million in 12 hours since the injury.

McKees Rocks is less than four miles across the Ohio River from Acrisure Stadium where the Pittsburgh Steelers play. Growing up in McKees Rocks, Hamlin, 24, was a football and basketball star. But it was in football he made his mark, and current Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin knew him by name at just 12-years-old.

“I’ll say this about Damar Hamlin, this is a very personal thing for me, being a Pittsburgher, and that young man being a Pittsburgher, I’ve known that guy since he was about 12. I’ve got a lot of respect and love for him,” Tomlin said Tuesday. “As a human being, his commitment to the pursuit of his goals and dreams to be doing what it is he’s doing right now, which is playing in the NFL. To watch him making personal decisions and making a realization, it’s just an honor to get to know young people like that.”

Hamlin made such an impact on Tomlin, that Tomlin would make sure he talked to him after an NFL game.

“I’ve had an opportunity to express that to him whenever I see him. We played Buffalo each of the last two seasons and he and I got to have a moment. It’s just cool to not only appreciate these guys for where they are now, but to know them since they were younger people and watch their maturation and development,” Tomlin said. “To watch them to earn what they’ve been chasing. He’s an example of that, I have a lot of love for that young man and lifting him and that organization up in prayer. I have reached out to (Buffalo Bills head coach) Sean McDermott to lend whatever assistance I could. But I don’t have a lot to add other than I hope you can respect how personal it is for me and all of us. People who thrive in this space, this is nothing you ever want to see.”

As a senior at Central Catholic, Hamlin led his football team to a 15-1 season and a PIAA state championship. He was recruited by the best of the best in Division I, from Ohio State to Alabama. He was the top-rated cornerback in the state and the 13th best in the nation according to ESPN. However, there was only one place he wanted to be — Pittsburgh.

“I was just so Pittsburgh. Everything was Pittsburgh for me,” Hamlin told the Point Park Globe when he signed with the University of Pittsburgh. “I wanted to give my city bragging rights, bring my city something and just give the city another reason to smile.”

And did he ever.

Hamlin led the team in tackles, switched to safety and continued to make plays and interceptions and was voted a team captain during his award-winning senior year in 2020.

The Buffalo Bills thought highly of Hamlin. In the sixth round, they used a spot from a trade with the Houston Texans to draft Hamlin as the 212th overall pick. He led the Bills in tackles this year, just as he did in college.

When he was in college, Hamlin started the toy drive. While most seniors in college were preparing for life and work, he was figuring out a way to start giving back. Hamlin also started his own clothing line and donated clothes to those in need in the Pittsburgh area.

Ty Dunne of GoLongTD.com was writing for The Athletic when Hamlin was drafted. Dunne saw a lot in Hamlin and wrote a feature on the player.

“I wanted to give him that image growing up,” Hamlin told Dunne. “Me growing up … I didn’t have anybody I could look up to or lean on. That’s why I stayed home at Pitt. I chose Pitt over everybody. Just for that one reason — for my brother.”

Pitt head football coach Pat Narduzzi said after the draft, “The Bills got themselves a gem of a player and person,” Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi said after Buffalo made him a sixth-round pick in 2021, per The Athletic. “Damar was the quarterback of our defense. He’s smart, tough and such a sure tackler back there. He is going to be a difference-maker for Buffalo.”

In his GoFundMe set up in college, Hamlin wrote, “As I embark on my journey to the NFL, I will never forget where I come from and I am committed to using my platform to positively impact the community that raised me. I created The Chasing M’s Foundation as a vehicle that will allow me to deliver that impact, and the first program is the 2020 Community Toy Drive.”

During the pandemic, he said, “This campaign gives you the opportunity to contribute to our first initiative and positively impact children who have been hardest hit by the pandemic. 100% of the funds raised will go toward the purchase of toys for kids in need. The time to act is now.”

Hamlin also encouraged residents who could not afford to donate money, to donate toys or spread the word on social media.

“Thank you so much for supporting me on and off the field. I am grateful to have the opportunity to work with you to help make the holiday season a little brighter for the kids in our community,” Hamlin added.

Ben Cawley of Bolivar, N.Y., south of Buffalo, is a huge Cincinnati Bengals fan. When the schedule came out in October, he was talking about going to the game. He went with his girlfriend, Tina Loucks, a Buffalo Bills fan.

If you’ve been to games at the stadium in Buffalo as a fan, you know the wifi is jammed up and using social media is almost impossible. Texts come through all at once and phone calls often fail.

That’s what happened to the 65,00 fans in Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati.

“We knew something serious was going on here,” Cawley said today. “On top of that, there was not a lot of communication going on. People in the stadium were trying to reach out to people at home to find out what was going on, The internet was down and we couldn’t update social media.”

It was a scene and atmosphere like no other.

“It wasn’t even the first injury of the game and it really happened quickly,” Cawley recalled. “Of course, Tina is a Bills fan, I’m a Benglas fan. I’m cheering the completion to Higgins and the energy in the stadium up to that point was electric. It was huge. You could see he had gone down, but it happened so quickly, so we didn’t realize the severity of it, we just thought another Bills player went down.’

“They really don’t replay that in the stadium, so we didn’t get the vantage point. But the longer he was down, the longer they were tending to him — and then the entire Bills team left the sidelines and came over to him — that’s when we realized something was wrong,” Camwley continued. “Everyone knew something serious was going on here. Of course, the ambulance comes out and a stretcher. Nobody knew what was going on, we just knew the gravity of something serious had happened. The stadium was ‘whisper quiet.’ To go from that must positive, oud energy to this, which you knew wasn’t a normal sports injury.”

Loucks said, “People were texting us that players were crying and it didn’t look good at all, so everyone thought he died.”

Cawley said, “It approached 10 minutes and we were getting these texts, you could see the players were distressed. The Bengals were on their sidelines and all on a knee. It was tough. We knew something was going on but we dodn;t know what was going on. We didn’t know if he died. We just didn’t know. Even after they took him out, which seemed like an eternity. After reading up on it, it was 16 minutes but it seemed like forever. “

Like those watching on television and the announcers, the fans felt the same way about resuming the game.

“You saw people warming up and we all said to each other, ‘There’s no way you play a game now. there’s no way you play a competitive football game.’ Then the coaches met with the officials and the two teams split off and left for the locker rooms,” Cawley said. “When the single announcement came the game was temporarily suspended, we didn’t know what that meant or what was going on. Was it suspended tonight or for another day?”

For the next 45 minutes, fans didn’t know what was happening until the announcement came over the public address system the game was postponed.

“People were sending us pictures of coaches on the phone, hugging and shaking hands, we knew it was over,” Loucks said. “What a change. With the lights and sounds and cheering, it was the highest I’ve been and the lowest I’ve been at a game.”

Cawley and Loucks had a two miles walk across the bridge to Kentucky. They did not speak. Even on the drive home today, there was silence.

“That energy got sucked out of the stadium and the rest of the night was somber. It was nothing like leaving a game normally where people are leaving the game with energy. it was gone. It was like a zombie walk,” he said.

Loucks said, “A couple buildings were lit up in orange before the game, they were now lit in blue to support the Bills.”

Loucks gathered her thoughts and posted on Facebook, “Heading home from Cincinnati and still processing the whole experience. I have never had so much fun in a day encountering so many Bengals fans and Bills fans that were all equally awesome. I heard “Who Dey” a thousand times and followed it with “Hey-ayyyyyyy-ayyyyyyyy-ayy” and always had it returned. We found the Bills pre-game lot and partied with both teams fans there and at The Banks For the Bengals pre game party. Even waiting in line for the game talked about fun rivalry’s and everyone was on a high. The stadium was literally LIT and I soon became a minority but everyone was great and I heard “Go Bills” often. We all had a side, a team, a goal …. until Damar Hamlin collapsed. At that time there wasn’t a single person there who cared about their team or their victory. We all just became humans with the same goal. The highest of highs turned to the lowest of lows and after sitting for almost an hour in fear, when they postponed the game, we made the near two mile walk home in silence. We are praying for Hamlin and his family and heading home with faith in knowing that when it matters we are all on the same team.”