ESPN was thrust into news coverage mode Monday night after Buffalo Bills defensive back Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed on the field. Scott Van Pelt, along with several of his ESPN colleagues, received praise from many in sports media circles for their handling of the situation.
However, many observers wondered why ESPN never interviewed a medical expert or doctor during its immediate coverage of the incident. Van Pelt revealed Tuesday he wasn’t interested in doing that interview in the moment.
“My personal preference was that I didn’t want to bring in a physician to speculate,” Van Pelt told CNN’s Oliver Darcy. “I totally see the other side, where a well-trained eye of a physician might recognize something that might totally make sense. But I just didn’t want to be speculating.”
The veteran SportsCenter anchor added it was important to work strictly in fact during the situation.
“I kept leaning into what we know,” he continued. “We’ll deal in what we know, not in what we wish we knew or hope to find out. And the truth is, we knew very little.”
