NFL And Dr. Mike Just Broke A World Record
During the second day of the 2026 NFL Draft at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh, something happened in the stands that had nothing to do with football and everything to do with saving lives. Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, the NFL, the American Heart Association, and Dr. Mike Varshavski, the most followed doctor on social media, teamed up with fans and community members to teach Hands-Only CPR to as many people as possible in a single hour, setting a Guinness World Record for the most people to complete CPR training in 60 minutes. By the time the session ended, 1,293 people had been certified, each one now equipped with a skill that can double or even triple a cardiac arrest survivor's chances of making it home. For Hamlin, who collapsed on the field during Monday Night Football in 2023 and was kept alive by an athletic trainer who started CPR within seconds, the moment was deeply personal.
More than 350,000 Americans experience cardiac arrest outside of a hospital every year, and fewer than 10 percent survive, largely because more than half of them never receive CPR before emergency responders arrive. Hands-Only CPR requires no formal training and takes as little as 90 seconds to learn, making it one of the most accessible lifesaving skills that exists, and one of the most underused. Hamlin said watching his hometown come together to set the record and learn the skill was incredibly meaningful, and that the goal is to build a lasting legacy of people who know what to do when it matters most. Dr. Mike added that in just one hour, nearly 1,300 people learned what he says every single day: that chest compressions are the difference between life and death, and that now those people know the power is in their hands.
