Damar Hamlin’s ordeal motivates Bo Kimble to keep honoring the memory of Hank Gathers

Bo Kimble was about to tune in Monday night to the Bengals-Bills game when he received a phone call from Albert Gersten, a booster from Kimble’s basketball days at Loyola Marymount.

“He was in tears,” Kimble said Tuesday.

Gersten wanted to know if Kimble was watching Monday Night Football as a Bills defensive back — 24-year-old Damar Hamlin — had gone into cardiac arrest, eerily similar to the way Kimble’s friend and teammate Hank Gathers did in 1990 when he died on the court. Kimble told Gersten he was five minutes away from starting the game on his DVR.

“He just relived the Hank story,” Kimble said. “And wanted me to know.”

Kimble, who teamed in 1980s with Gathers at Dobbins Tech before starring together at Loyola Marymount in Paul Westhead’s fast-break offense, relives the Hank story whenever he hears about someone suffering a cardiac arrest. Kimble said he gets phone calls — like the weeping one he received Monday — every time an athlete drops the way Gathers did.

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Kimble and Gathers grew up together in North Philadelphia, left high school in 1985 as Public League champions, and traveled across the country, first to Southern Cal and then to Loyola Marymount, to power the most exciting team in college basketball. Gathers was a dynamo who led the nation in scoring and rebounding as a junior at Loyola Marymount and was ticketed for the NBA before he died at 23 in his senior season, two weeks before the start of the NCAA Tournament.

And now Kimble dedicates his life to the dream of not having to relive the Hank story again.

The nonprofit Kimble launched in 2011 aims to place defibrillators in all public places while raising awareness about the dangers of sudden cardiac arrest, which Kimble calls “the No. 1 killer in the world.” The 44 For Life Foundation — named after the number Gathers wore on the court — is partnering with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Youth Heart Watch to place defibrillators in each Pennsylvania school.

“We buy expensive cars. We buy expensive jewelry. We take vacations. We buy houses. We do all these flamboyant things in life, but we don’t buy defibrillators and have them at home or at the workplace,” Kimble said. “If you can’t afford it, learn CPR. There’s a lot of things that we don’t do for ourselves but we’ll do anything for our children. So what I say to parents is that it’s unacceptable to have a child — any age, but particularly a minor — and not know CPR. It’s unacceptable. Do it for your kids. Do it for your loved ones. You never know whose life you might have to save.”

Kimble thinks about his friend every day, but it was the death of Robert Carter — a 38-year-old whom he hardly knew — that pushed him into action. Kimble was playing in a summer basketball league at a YMCA in New Jersey when Carter went into cardiac arrest.

Kimble did not know CPR and was one of three people fanning Carter with a towel until paramedics arrived. Kimble learned less than an hour later that Carter, like Gathers, died on the court.

“I got so upset because here’s the second time this crap happened and I couldn’t help this guy,” Kimble said. “I knew in my heart that if I knew CPR, he probably would have made it. No different if we did CPR for Hank. You must do CPR within two to three minutes of a sudden cardiac arrest. That’s why Damar made it [Monday] and in my opinion, why Hank and Robert Carter didn’t make it.”

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Kimble exchanged text messages Tuesday morning with his former Loyola teammates as he said they know exactly how the Bills were feeling on Monday night as they watched medical personnel work to revive their teammate on the field.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Kimble said. “It’s stressful to see. You know it’s a serious issue when you see CPR being administered and you witness the AED being used and trying to revive him. That’s extremely, extremely traumatic, not just for the team but for the fans in the stands. You don’t want to see that. But it’s better to do that and save him than not being public or having the team exposed to it. From what I hear, Damar is a great community guy. He’s a young man with the rest of his life ahead of him.”

And that group of Lions can also imagine how the Bills will feel when they eventually resume their season. Loyola Marymount returned to the court 13 days after Gathers’ death for the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Kimble, who was a cocaptain alongside his buddy, told his teammates that they couldn’t play for the love of their fallen teammate. They still loved Gathers, Kimble said, even if they didn’t win a game.

“But that went in one ear and out the other, trust me,” said Kimble as 11th-seeded Loyola Marymount advanced to the 1990 Elite Eight. “That ball went up in every tournament game and trust me, they were playing for their love of Hank. We just put our pain and grief into our play. We were playing with a higher sense of purpose. That’s the reason we had the level of success we did. No one was thinking about themselves. We were just playing for our love of Hank. That made a difference in the tournament that year.”

Kimble eventually turned on the football game on Monday and saw Hamlin collapse after making a tackle. It was a reminder, Kimble said, that his friend did not die in vain as he credits Gathers’ death for revolutionizing how medical personnel now respond to cardiac arrests in sports.

Hamlin was given CPR on the field and transported off the field by an ambulance to a Cincinnati hospital, where he remained Tuesday in critical condition.

And it was a reminder for Kimble to keep his dream going.

“It doesn’t weaken me or sadden me. It just empowers me to go forward and go faster,” Kimble said. “What more can I do? Who do I need to bring to bear? What millionaire or billionaire friend do I need to get involved with to help me run faster and do it bigger and better? That’s what Monday did for me.

“Unfortunately, it takes a high profile athlete in a Monday Night Football game or a Hank Gathers death, it takes something at a high-level exposure wise to get on people’s radar. What I’m saying is let’s be proactive instead of reactive.”