Mets player Brandon Nimmo says he’s OK after passing out and hitting his head in hotel room

WASHINGTON — Less than two hours before the New York Mets’ game Monday night against the Washington Nationals, outfielder Brandon Nimmo took the field wearing a bandage on his forehead and a hospital bracelet on his wrist.

Nimmo woke up Monday morning, confused and scared, after passing out and hitting his forehead in a hotel bathroom. He doesn’t remember much about the incident. He doesn’t even know exactly what he came into contact with. He also doesn’t know how long he was unconscious.

On Monday afternoon, however, Nimmo said he had avoided serious injury and was grateful for it. After his trip to the emergency room, Nimmo said he had passed all the tests — “CT scan, EKG and every test we can think of,” he said — and could return to the Mets’ lineup at his usual position in left field as early as Tuesday. But he was out of the lineup Monday after an alarming experience.

Nimmo woke up around 5:15 a.m. His stomach wasn’t feeling so good. So he decided to go to the bathroom. While he was in the bathroom, he got a cramp in his leg. He said that when he got the cramp, he got up really quickly, went to get some water, and went back to the bathroom. After that, he doesn’t remember what happened. His first memory of that moment: waking up on the floor, confused about how he got there. When he got up, blood was gushing from his face.

Brandon Nimmo is doing well now, according to Carlos Mendoza, but he won’t be in the lineup because he slipped in his hotel room last night and cut his head. He could return to the lineup tomorrow.

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“I’ve never had an experience like this, where I blacked out, and I literally can’t tell you what happened,” Nimmo said. “I had all kinds of guys with me yesterday who can vouch that I didn’t drink any alcohol. I didn’t drink at all. I don’t really know why that happened.”

Nimmo immediately called Mets head athletic trainer Joseph Golia at 5:37 a.m. Golia rushed to Nimmo’s hotel room. From there, they quickly went to the emergency room. Nimmo did not leave the hospital until Monday afternoon.

Nimmo said he had never fainted before.

“It scared me,” Nimmo said. “That’s why I called Joe right away. I was trying to figure out, OK, you don’t just pass out. What happened? Is there something more serious? An underlying problem? That’s why we had to check all the boxes.”

Nimmo said doctors told him the cramp likely caused his blood pressure to rise and his heart rate to race. He also felt tingling in his hands and a warm sensation just before he passed out.

“I asked them if there was anything I could do to prevent this from happening again, and they said no, sometimes a perfect storm happens,” Nimmo said. “My understanding is that your brain, when you go back and your blood pressure drops, your brain just loses blood for a second, and you’re out of commission.”

Last month, Nimmo was hit in the helmet flap by a pitch, but he passed all concussion tests. He said there was no correlation between the incidents. Nimmo slumped down at bat immediately after being hit by the pitch, and he attributed some of that to being “shy.” But he said “medically, there was no correlation to a concussion.” In June, Nimmo posted a 1.004 OPS as one of the few healthy hitters in the Mets’ lineup. After not even needing stitches Monday, Nimmo said he was grateful to be able to return to action soon — though the club will continue to monitor him.

Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said: “I think we got lucky.”

(Photo by Brandon Nimmo on May 19: Rich Storry/Getty Images)