Indianapolis Colts safety Rodney Thomas II rushed to the hospital to be with his friend, Damar Hamlin, after the Bills safety’s scary collapse on the field Monday night.

Thomas drove over 100 miles from Indianapolis to Cincinnati after watching his friend suffer cardiac arrest on “Monday Night Football” against the Bengals. He was able to get into the room with Hamlin, and said he spoke to him and held his hand.

“I knew he could hear me,” Thomas told reporters on Wednesday. “Even if he couldn’t hear me, it didn’t matter. I said what I had to say.”

Thomas and Hamlin have been friends for years, having played together at Central Catholic High School in Pittsburgh. Hamlin stayed local and played his college football at University of Pittsburgh, while Thomas played at Yale.

The two remained good friends, and had even spoken before Monday night’s game.

Like the rest of the NFL world, Thomas was horrified when he saw medics perform CPR for several minutes on Hamlin before he was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. However, he said the hospital visit was able to put him at ease.

“It calmed me way down,” Thomas said. “It made the trip home a lot easier. I could go home and know he’s gonna be straight. I got him. We all got him. Everybody’s behind him.”

As of Thursday morning, Hamlin remains in critical condition in an ICU at a Cincinnati hospital not far from Paycor Stadium. However, he has shown “signs of improvement” since being admitted Monday night, with his uncle, Dorian Glenn, telling CNN that his use of a ventilator was down to 50 percent from 100.