As a former football coach at Auburn, Tommy Tuberville has witnessed gruesome injuries, like Carnell “Cadillac” Williams snapping his ankle in front of him.

But Alabama’s senior U.S. senator said the injury Monday night to Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, who is fighting for his life in a Cincinnati hospital after collapsing on the field and going into cardiac arrest, “opens your eyes to how brutal this sport is.”

“I’ve been around devastating injuries before, but this obviously was life-threatening,” Tuberville said during an appearance Tuesday morning on the Yaffee Program on WVNN radio. “Carnell Williams snapped his ankle in front of me one year against Florida, but I’ve never been in one quite like this where a player goes down because of cardiac arrest.”

“It’s unfortunate that the player was high and he’s running by, just runs over him with his helmet, hits him right in the chest and heart quits beating .. it’s just pretty unfortunate,” Tuberville said, adding that the incident is a rare occurrence.

“We’re praying for him. And, hopefully. he fights through this,” the senator said.

He said the NFL made the right decision in cancelling Monday night’s nationally televised game between the Bills and Cincinnati Bengals after Hamlin’s injury.

“When you’re watching this – and a very important professional football game, millions of people watching – you got everyone looking at this one person on the field, it opens your eyes to how brutal this sport is,” Tuberville said.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt” the NFL made the right decision,” the senator siad, “because when you got someondy’s life on the line … it shows you that ‘Hey, that’s just a game that they’re playing. What this mans fighting for is for his life.”

Tuberville said he didn’t believe there were any measures the NFL could take to prevent a similar situation from recurring.

“It’s a contact sport, and you’re gonna have unfortunate things like this happen,” he said. “Very seldom do you have anything happen to your heart. Its just unfortunate … I don’t know what you’d do to prevent that from happening again. It just happened at an inopportune time.”