Jessica Pegula opens up about her mom and Buffalo Sabres owner Kim Pegula’s health issues

On the night that Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest on the field, Jessica texted her husband about the situation with her mom “when can we start talking about it? When can I tell her story, my family’s story” 

It was in June 2022 when Jessica had just been competing at the French Open where she made the quarterfinals in singles and the finals in doubles; cracking the Top-10 marker in the world. It was a few days later when tragedy struck. Jessica received a phone call from her sister Kelly, their mom Kim went into cardiac arrest while she was sleeping. Kim performed CPR until paramedics arrived, saving her life.

“So here we are in the hospital,” Jessica writes in a lengthy and emotional piece. “They figured out what was wrong, they fixed it, but the big question was how she would be when she woke up. Our concern had now moved from the cardiac arrest to a brain injury. Not to mention all the other issues that come with both of those events. Breathing, swallowing, preventing infections, there are so many things that can go wrong. The most frustrating thing about these types of injuries is that the outcome is unknown. Experts base it on how long the brain was without oxygen, and how one responds to commands at the earliest stages, but it is very difficult. It was a waiting game.”

The following few weeks the family spent countless nights, repeating shifts in the hospital while Kim went through the initial stages of her recovery phase. Jessica was told it was a miracle that her mom survived. 

Today, Kim is still in recovery and there is a long road ahead. “She is dealing with significant expressive aphasia and significant memory issues. She can read, write, and understand pretty well, but she has trouble finding the words to respond. It is hard to deal with and it takes a lot of patience to communicate with her, but I thank God every day that we can still communicate with her at all. The doctors continue to be blown away by her recovery, considering where she started, and her determination is the driving force of that,” Jessica said.

The Pegula family became the owners of the Buffalo Sabres in Fenbrayrary 2011 after Terry Pegula sold his natural gas drilling rights to Royal Dutch Shell for a staggering $4.7 billion. The Pegulas would later purchase the Buffalo Bills for $1.4 billion.