WGR-AM’s Sal Capaccio spent much of Tuesday appearing on radio and TV stations across the country, talking about what he saw as the sideline reporter on the Buffalo Bills broadcast of the “Monday Night Football” game with the Cincinnati Bengals that ended after the horrific injury to Bills safety Damar Hamlin.
Capaccio described what he saw on Sirius/XM, CBS Sports radio, ESPN and stations in Dallas, Cleveland, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, San Francisco, two stations in Pittsburgh and for Audacy, which owns WGR.
It was not just part of the job for Capaccio, who has spent nine years as the Bills sideline reporter.
It was also therapy for having witnessed the traumatic event.
“Part of the way I dealt with it is I did a lot of radio and TV on Tuesday,” Capaccio said. “That was a bit therapeutic for me to know that people were relying on information and what I saw. I could talk through it a little bit and I could process it a little bit better. That was actually one way I didn't have to sit with it all day.”
When Hamlin was injured in the first quarter, Capaccio went into his usual work mode.
“You do have the experience of seeing injuries, even really horrible injuries, head injuries, neck injuries, but something that happened like Monday night, you can never, ever be ready for because it's never happened before, at least not to me.”
He was within 30 yards or 40 yards of where Hamlin collapsed.
“My job is always to watch for injuries, to see a guy limping off the field … I have to kind of follow that so I can report on it and kind of update everybody on what's going on and I happened to see a player just collapsed. I didn't know who it was.”
When the medical team started going out to the field, Capaccio moved as close as he could get to the bench area and where he was allowed to stand. He said there were stages of realizing how horrific the injury was to Hamlin, a player he had a few pleasant conversations with in the past few years.
Capaccio and people close to him thought they saw CPR being administered to Hamlin but couldn't really see it being done.
“I thought to myself, that's something I've never seen before. I can't imagine that's happening on a football field. I thought maybe they were frantically cutting off his face mask … I think they did do that, by the way.”
He described the stages of realizing how horrific the situation was.
“You knew it was a significant injury when we saw Bengals players immediately motion to the sidelines to get medical teams out there, because a couple of them were really close to where it happened. So that was the first part. Then you started to see some emotion coming out of players. And that was the second part. Now, that's not completely unique. You'll see that sometimes when there's a head injury.
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“But what really, really, told me that it was something horrifying was when the entire Bills sideline of players, coaches, staff, everyone went on the field and formed this huge circle of a human wall and they were shoulder to shoulder, holding each other, hugging each other. They were really tight and they had their backs to where Damar was and the medical team, and their fronts were facing us and the crowd. It was apparent they were doing that so no one could see inside to know what they were doing.
“I'd never seen that before. And when I saw that I knew there's something really bad going on in there and something is horrible.”
Capaccio was able to keep his emotions in check for the most part while reporting.
“I have a job to do when I'm down there and my job was to report on what I saw. I had to be an observer and a source of information for our listeners … As horrible as it was, I have to remember that people are relying on me to give the information as best as possible.
“It hit me afterwards more when I wasn't doing that anymore, I wasn't in the job anymore when we're all set and done. It hit me more Tuesday morning when I woke up and thinking about what I saw and what we all went through. But at the moment, it's more about doing the job and you know being professional and giving the information you can as everything is happening.”
He said there was one especially emotional moment, which he has talked about on several of his national radio appearances.
It was when he saw Damar’s mother wearing her son’s No. 3 jersey talking with security and heard her say: “That's my son.”
“She wanted to get on the field, and I couldn't help her. I looked around to see if anybody else could and I happened to see (Bills cornerback) Dane Jackson, pointing her out to one of the Bills personnel.”
Security helped her get on the field.
“That was really emotional for me,” he said.
His mood has changed this week since covering the story.
“I'm just a really positive, optimistic person. And I think that it just weighs on me. I'm makes me much more somber than I normally would be when I think about this game and all the great things. I love football and I love everything about it. And you see something like this happen and it just makes you just sad that we're all going through this and, of course, for Damar’s family …. It's made me really sad this week and I'm normally just not a sad person.”
Capaccio said the experience will remain a part of him.
“It’s something that I will always remember and I will always think about when a player is on the field and my mind will immediately go to that,” said Capaccio.
“I have such a great job. I'm so lucky to be on an NFL sideline every single weekend and doing it for a team that I grew up rooting for and going to games and there's so many highs and lows on the field, right with the team that you experience because you're down there as part of the emotion and the great wins that they've had and the heartbreaking losses.
“But the reason why this was so different was because it was not about football; it was about the human element. And really seeing how much love and emotion is a part of this game and the organization and you know that when you're around these players and you go to practice all the time. But to see that many people and these men who we view, I think a lot of times as larger than life and tougher than life, to be going through that. That's what I'll be always thinking of remembering.”
Capaccio called home to asked his wife how their 9-year-old son, Max, a big Bills fan, was dealing with what he saw at home in Buffalo.
“We have a Bills media guide in the house,” said Capaccio. “My wife told me that after everything happened he read all about Damar and he wanted to learn about Damar and I thought that was really nice that he wanted to do that.”
So was much of America.
