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The consequences of NFL player Damar Hamlin's collapse after he was hit in the chest by an opposing player's helmet during a tackle were debated Wednesday on The View.
The 24-year-old Buffalo Bills safety, who went into cardiac arrest and received lengthy CPR on the football field, is still in critical condition in a hospital following Monday night's game against the Cincinnati Bengals.
The View panelists discussed whether the incident would affect whether kids will want to take up the sport and whether parents will be happy with them playing it.
Whoopi Goldberg introduced the topic, telling her fellow panelists, "Monday Night Football fans watched in horror when Damar Hamlin collapsed after a hit to the chest caused him to go into cardiac arrest. EMTs performed CPR on the field for 10 minutes, and he's still in a critical condition."
She went on: "It has renewed calls for the NFL and all football programs to make safety a bigger priority. Do we think this is going to make more people turn away from the sport?"
Goldberg continued: "I don't think anybody wants people to turn away from the sport. I think they want them to make the sport safer. However, this hit, I don't know that there's anything that could have been done that they could have avoided.... First of all, we want him and his family to know we're thinking of them."
Sunny Hostin, who is also a senior legal correspondent and analyst for ABC News, spoke about a situation that happened to her son.
"It was stunning. It was horrific, and it's every parent's nightmare [with] a kid that plays football. My kid played football. He was recruited for college, and he got a terrible hamstring injury getting hit, and I saw him collapse to the ground," she said.
"He went through physical therapy for six months, and he realized at that point that could happen to [his] brain. So he quit, and it was a very hard thing for him because he loved doing it. But I don't think it's going to turn people away from the sport, because I went to Notre Dame. It's like faith, family, football."
The panelists heard that football is a $105 billion industry, and co-host Joy Behar said a poll shows that only 45 percent of Americans think tackle football is appropriate.
Co-host Sara Haines suggested that parents may now have an issue with their children going into football.
She said: "So I don't think it'll turn people away from consuming the sport because it is, as Sunny says, such a huge part of a tradition in this country. I grew up and football was just the norm. My parents went to the games long after we were even in high school because the whole town did."
Haines went on: "What it might change is people that have kids coming up, because, like me, you even wouldn't have known all the damage that could be done now. Right now, you see the science and the risks of [chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE]. As a parent, it's the one hard line I draw in the sand, that I will not even let my kids pretend to fall in love or get a chance to fall in love with that sport because I look at my own family.
"We have depression, it runs in the family. We've got things we're not going to be able to avoid. You have natural disasters in the world, you have cancer and you have sickness. I don't want to increase any chance that my children could deal with some of the mental problems of head injuries," she said.
Alyssa Farah Griffin, who was the White House's director of strategic communications and assistant to the president in 2020, said this was an issue that she has already discussed with her husband, despite not having children as yet.
She said: "There are other team sports. My husband, we don't even have kids yet and we have that conversation.
"We don't want boys to play football if we have them. I have a friend I lost touch with a few years ago, and played at a major school. Didn't end up going pro and was a successful attorney, but he sustained so many injuries playing the sport, he got addicted to painkillers and he died a couple of months ago of an overdose.
"I know the league is taking steps to try to deal with it, but it's the toll it takes on the body, unlike any other sport," Griffin said.
Goldberg stepped back into the debate and said: "One of the things that all of you mothers are going to have to deal with is it may not be your choice and all you can do is give them all the information that you can.
"And really make sure that wherever they're playing, that there are doctors around who know what's happening, because the truth of the matter is, you could run and trip on a tennis court and pull a hamstring."
Hostin added: "They're taking the risk with their bodies and their brains, and they may not ever get paid if they get an injury."
Whoopi concluded the debate by saying, "This all makes sense to everybody at the table.... All you can do is give them the best information that's out there.
"That means you have to pay attention to everything that's happening. You can't sit by and hope that somebody's going to take care of this. This is going to be in your hands if your kid is playing any kind of sport," she said.
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