ESPN had to adjust on the fly after Bills safety Damar Hamlin sustained a horrifying injury.

Hamlin, a 24-year-old safety on the Bills, collapsed on the field after tackling Bengals wideout Tee Higgins in the first quarter. Hamlin was administered CPR on the field and taken to the hospital in an ambulance. The game was temporarily suspended in wake of the injury before being postponed for the evening.

Hamlin suffered from cardiac arrest and is in critical condition, the Bills announced.

ESPN cut in and out of break multiple times as Joe Buck and Troy Aikman spoke somberly about what was transpiring on the field, as the players on both teams knelt down in prayer and fought back tears. Lisa Salters, the sideline reporter, informed the audience that Hamlin had received CPR.

Eventually, ESPN made the decision to switch from the game broadcasters to the studio, where Suzy Kolber was hosting with Adam Schefter and Booger McFarland.

“The emotion that we’re experiencing tonight is really hard to describe,” Kolber said. “We cannot and will not speculate. What we do know is he needed CPR, and that in itself is terrifying.”

McFarland, who had a nine-year career as a player and has been covering the NFL as an analyst for over a decade, said, “it’s something like we’ve never seen before. I’ve never been a part of it, never heard about it. You hate to keep repeating the same thing but all you can do is pray for this young man right now. Anytime you bring CPR into effect, hopefully they’ve gotten word,

“I’m sure he has family out there, hopefully the Bills and the doctors are communicating with the family. I can only imagine what my family would [be thinking]. They’d want updates of what’s going on, just to make sure in real-time. That’s somebody’s son, somebody’s brother, somebody’s father. They want to know what’s going on.”

ESPN reported that Hamlin’s family was at the game in Cincinnati, and that his mother traveled with him to the hospital.

Schefter said that “it’s chilling to watch it — you can just see on social media, every single team, player and person offering up their prayers to Damar Hamlin. The players were sent to the locker room and the game doesn’t matter. The game is so secondary to everything else. No one cares about the game. Everyone cares about this young man, his family, and finding out how he’s doing.”

Kolber concluded a segment, “let’s candidly say, this is what we do for a living, is we sit here and have to discuss this and talk about it, it’s really tough. All we want, just like everyone in this world, is to know that Damar Hamlin is going to be okay. That’s it.”

After about an hour, the broadcast pivoted to “SportsCenter” with Scott Van Pelt. Asked by Van Pelt to describe what he’s been processing since it happened, Buck said, “It’s really hard. It’s hard just to describe it. What we all feel [is irrelevant], think about the Hamlin family and what they feel and that’s the focus, but this went from a sports story to a news story from a sporting event to a matter of life and death like that.

“There was a moment when the medical personnel was all out there, and we’re standing up here, and unfortunately, like Lisa said, we’ve been through a lot of situations in games where we stood up here and you’re watching medical personnel make sure somebody’s okay down on the field. You think they’re going through a blow to the head or something along those lines. It switched quickly. It went from what is the typical ‘everybody gather ’round let’s make sure this player is okay’ to those who are on the field in his immediate vicinity administering CPR and really pounding on his chest. A lot of that was not on TV.”

“We were sitting here, and I’m looking at Troy and he’s looking at me, and it’s like, ‘God, this is not what you expected to see.’ And now, is he okay? And it went on and on and on. And that’s when the players were gathered around so tight that it was hard to even see what’s going on. This took your breath away. I’m sick to my stomach, if you’re asking me how I feel, which, nobody cares, but that’s what it feels like being here in this stadium tonight witnessing what we saw around midfield.”