On Tuesday, the team said Mr. Hamlin was staying in intensive care and in critical condition. At the same time, there were local elected officials Remind residents of crisis hotlines if the deluge of bad news had become simply overwhelming.
A flood of “enough already” spread online, with many Buffalonians, both past and present, praying for both Mr. Hamlin and their hometown. On Twitter, the hashtag #Buffalostrong is a catchphrase following the mass shooting at the Tops supermarket in May – was back, even if it seemed worn out from overuse.
“Buffalo is strong,” Michael Bennysaid a local news anchor on Twitter. “But this is all too much.”
The watch for Mr. Hamlin’s health came while the town was still shaking from last month’s “once-in-a-generation” blizzard, which brought hurricane-force winds and blinding snow to town, causing some victims in their car and others freeze on streets and in snowdrifts.
Days later, a New Year’s Eve fire tore through a home on the northeast side of town, killing five children, none of them older than 10 years old. Only one baby was spared.
Lisa Balderman, 38, a Buffalo resident and psychotherapist, said she believed many Buffalo residents and fans of Bills suffered “vicarious trauma” from the barrage of terrible events, noting that the region was also dealing had with the impact of Covid-19, causing thousands of deaths in Erie County alone.
“Add the layers of the recent events that happened specifically in Buffalo — a mass murder, deadly snowstorm, and now looking at a major medical crisis — and there’s a heaviness,” she said, adding: “The needs in terms of mental health of our community are important now.”