ORCHARD PARK

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- Just over 3½ months after commotio cordis caused Damar Hamlin to collapse on a football field in Cincinnati, Hamlin sat in the Buffalo Bills' facility and officially announced his plans on making a comeback to the NFL after being fully cleared to return to playing football.

But the remarkable achievement of going from suffering cardiac arrest on national TV to returning to workouts with his teammates is just the next chapter in Hamlin's journey.

"This occasion was life changing, but it's not the conclusion of my story," Hamlin said.

Hamlin shared Tuesday -- during his first news conference since the events on Jan. 2 amid the primary quarter of a regular-season "Monday Night Football" diversion against the Cincinnati Bengals -- that specialists concluded that Hamlin endured a particular sort of cardiac capture, commotio cordis, "an greatly uncommon result of limit drive injury to the heart that happens at exactly the off-base time within the heart cadence, causing the heart to halt beating viably," per the American Heart Affiliation. Collapsing happens inside many  seconds.

For the 25-year-old security, who has been cleared by numerous pros, returning to the field is something that he needs to do for himself.

"My heart is still in the game. I love the game. It is something I need to demonstrate to myself, not no one else," Hamlin said. "I just wanna show people that that fear is a choice that you can keep going in something without having the answers and without knowing what's at the end of the tunnel. Otherwise you might feel on edge, you might feel any sort of way, but you fair keep putting that right foot before the cleared out one, and you keep going. I want to stand for that."

Commotio cordis is a "diagnosis of exclusion," Dr. William Knight IV, professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Director of the Emergency Medicine MLP Program and part of Hamlin's care team, said in January. That means that more common, deadly or fixable conditions have to first be ruled out before commotio cordis is the diagnosis.

There are no chance components for commotio cordis, per the American Heart Affiliation, which too cites out-of-hospital sudden cardiac capture as the driving cause of passing for understudy competitors. Bringing down numbers like that, Hamlin said, is something he "by and by will be taking a step in to create a alter."

Hamlin saw his last of three heart specialists, who were located in various parts of the country, Friday and is in attendance and participating at voluntary workouts with the Bills this week. Bills head athletic trainer Nate Breske also accompanied Hamlin on those trips.

That final specialist went so far as to tell Hamlin that he felt returning to playing would be good for his mental health.

"Being around my partners, the camaraderie of the don of football, you know, that's what makes this wear the leading within the world, is the brotherhood that it makes, the solidarity that it makes between all individuals of all viewpoints of life and fair distinctive ventures, it brings them together for one common objective," Hamlin said. "And I feel like that's a coordinate relationship of what happened to me that night, you know, fair bringing individuals together in supplication, cherish, but that's what this don does as well, so my heart is in it totally and it takes a parcel to be awesome in this amusement, and I got a long way to go. I got a long travel to go, but I'm committed to it each day, day in, day out."

The steps ahead for Hamlin includes taking things one day at a time and the mental steps of gradually upgrading to playing football. The mental journey and roller coaster of emotions is the "hardest hurdle," per Hamlin, but he noted how he has the right people in his corner, including those in the Bills' facility.

Bills general manager Brandon Beane said that all of the specialists were in agreement on Hamlin's case and on his being able to fully return to playing football.

"When he left Cincinnati, he came here, it was Buffalo General [Medical Center]," Beane said. "He saw a couple of specialists here in Buffalo, and then, since then, he's seen three additional specialists, most recently on Friday, and they're all in agreement. They're all in lockstep of what this was and that he's cleared, resumed full activities just like anyone else who was coming back from an injury or whatever."

The Bills began their voluntary off season program Monday. The team shared a video of the team's workouts which included Hamlin going through a variety of exercises alongside his defensive teammates.

Bills coach Sean Mc Dermott and Beane emphasized that the group will proceed to bolster Hamlin from a mental well being point of view.