NFL player knocks down a photographer, messages her later to see if she’s okay

Incidents happen in sports, both small and big ones. As photographers, we may sometimes get involved in them as well. This is what happened to photographer Shelley Lipton at a recent NFL game. Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson smashed into her at full speed, and a video of him helping her out and hugging her after the incident quickly went viral.

The video above shows the incident, as well as an excerpt from an interview with Jackson after it happened. As you can see, he smashed into the Pittsburgh-based photographer pretty hard and it looks pretty painful. He immediately approached her and helped her up, which in my opinion is the only right thing to do. And fortunately, Lipton wasn’t badly injured in the fall.

“I know we’re moving fast. It gets physical out there on the field. We’re coming full speed and she’s sitting down taking pictures. I know that kind of hurt her. So I had to make sure she was alright,” Jackson told the media after the incident. In fact, he sent her a direct message after the game to make sure that she was okay.

Lipton herself confirmed on Twitter that she was feeling fine and that it could have been much worse. “I was lucky that Lamar saw me and made every effort to avoid the hit,” she wrote in one of her tweets.” “Lamar was a true gentleman and made a bad situation much better. Makes mamas proud,” she wrote. And yeah, she managed to take an awesome shot of the action just before she got knocked down.

Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson (8) stiff-arms Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt (90) before plowing into me then picks me up like a tissue. #passthehelmetplease (Shelley Lipton/Icon Sportswire). .
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. #nfl #steelers #steelcityg… https://t.co/csRhUeuzWb pic.twitter.com/zKWORkHdnG

— Shelley Lipton (@shelleylipton) October 6, 2019

Frankly, I believe that this is the only way to react after you accidentally hurt someone in any way. Help them, say that you’re sorry and check on them later. In my opinion, that’s something that should be implied. But I guess that it doesn’t happen that often in fast-paced sports events, and I sure know that it also happens less and less in life, too. I’m glad that the photographer is doing okay, and Jackson’s move is a mere reminder on how to act in situations like this.

[FStoppers, Baltimore Ravens]