Fifteen minutes before a 3 p.m. prayer vigil outside of Highmark Stadium on Tuesday, about 60 Buffalo Bills fans had gathered in a big circle near a red, white and blue “Love” sign just off Abbott Road.
Jill Kelly went around the gathering and greeted, hugged and thanked every one of them for coming.
The fans probably weren’t expecting that kind of compassionate gesture from the wife of the Buffalo Bills’ Hall of Fame quarterback, but it no doubt was exactly what they needed a day after watching one of their heroes, Damar Hamlin, collapse on the field in Cincinnati.
Kelly organized the vigil, which lasted about 20 minutes and included roughly 200 fans once it began.
“The Buffalo Bills’ community is amazing,” Kelly said. “They always respond. We talked this morning. We woke up like everybody else wondering: How is Damar? What’s going on? Feeling that burden, that heaviness on our hearts that we needed to do something.
“It was whipped up together by a small group of people,” Kelly said. “Certainly we can give, and yes, give to the charity that Damar set up. But also pray because there’s power in prayer, and there’s power in community.”
The fans gathered to offer prayers for Hamlin, who remained in the intensive care unit of a Cincinnati hospital Tuesday after suffering cardiac arrest during the Bills’ game against the Bengals.
They were led in brief prayers by Kelly; Peter Jankowski, lead pastor at Life Church Buffalo; Matt Gold, pastor at Alden Community Church; and Del Reid, owner of 26 Shirts and co-founder of the Bills Mafia movement.
“I want to encourage everyone to think about the fact that scripture says we are all made in the image of God,” Jankowski said. “God’s fingerprint is on the soul of every human being. Last night was a poignant reminder that all people are spiritually inclined. We may not talk about God. Some people may not even acknowledge God. But when disaster strikes, when things like last night happen, the first instinct of humans is to cry out to their maker.”
Kelly followed Jankowski and said: “Lord we pray for Damar, we pray for his teammates, we pray for everyone that was on the field with him, the people who rushed to take care of him. We pray for every doctor, every nurse, every person who will touch his body. That you will give them wisdom and discernment, that you will reach into this situation through their hands and use them to save this man, to heal this man.”
Kelly watched the game at home Monday night with her husband, who had an out-of-town obligation on Tuesday.
“We were stunned and speechless,” Jill Kelly said. “We were reaching out to people we know. We were crying and upset. We immediately started praying. That was our first response, we started praying.
“Jim woke up this morning and said I don’t feel right, I’ve never felt this way before, I’ve seen so much on the field, I’m really scared. ... We felt like it was your own brother, especially coming from a football family and from a Bills family, we were broken. Jim was a wreck. It is family. Damar is like family to us and we consider him a brother.”
Reid said that watching the reaction of Bills players on the field to the injury made an emotional impact on him.
“It’s tough because these players, they’re humans just like us, but we tend to look at them as on a pedestal,” he said. “To see them upset like that really feels like this is one of us. I always say the Bills are the extra family member at every household in Western New York. So when you see your family visibly upset like that, you can’t help but get shook.”
Bills Hall of Famer Thurman Thomas and his wife, Patti, were among those who joined the prayer vigil.
“Prayer has the ability to effect change, and that’s what we’re going to be believing and asking God for, is to effect change in Damar’s body and his situation to bring healing and restoration,” Jankowski told the crowd.
In Cincinnati, a small group of fans gathered at 3 p.m. Tuesday for a moment of silence and prayer outside of the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, according to ESPN's Coley Harvey. At 8:55 p.m. Tuesday, fans were planning to congregate again outside the hospital to hold a candlelight vigil for Hamlin.
