A woman injured after being struck in the head and face by a broken bat Friday night in Boston remained hospitalized Saturday morning in "serious but stable condition," according to Boston police spokeswoman Officer Rachel McGuire.
The fan, now identified as Tonya Carpenter, was transported to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Hospital in Boston with what police described as life-threatening injuries. Her family released a statement on Saturday thanking well-wishers for their thoughts and prayers, while asking for privacy during what is understandably a difficult time.
The Red Sox also released an official statement.
While the news certainly sounds more encouraging than it did late Friday, we're also hearing some firsthand accounts from witnesses who were seated near the fan.
''It was violent,'' Alex Merlis, of Brookline, Massachusetts told the Associated Press. ''She bled a lot. A lot. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that.'
"Brett Lawrie hit the ball and the bat snapped in half near the end of the bat,” he added. “It hit on the forehead to the top of the head . . . it was a blunt trauma and it was a lot of blood. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much blood.”
It was a difficult scene for everyone to take in, but perhaps no one was more impacted than Brett Lawrie. It was hst broken bat that helicoptered into the stands and unbeknownst to him at the time injured the fan.
From the Boston Globe:
Lawrie said after the game that he did not initially realize the severity of the woman’s injuries because he was running to first base when the bat sailed into the stands. He glanced back briefly toward the stands while running out his hit.
“Then in between innings is when things kind of got serious and I realized there was a bit of an issue,” Lawrie said. “Hopefully everything is OK and she’s doing all right.. . . That was just unfortunate right there, no doubt.”
Asked if anything can prevent such injuries, Lawrie said, “The only thing there, you’ve got limited netting here in Boston. When you’re behind home plate and you’re along the third base side and first base side, you’ve really got to be heads-up for foul balls, anything coming into the stands, because it’s so close there’s really no time to react.
The unfortunate incident will definitely raise new concerns about fan safety. Lawrie was using a maple bat, which in the past have created concerns for MLB because of the frequency with which they break and the dangerous debris that is propelled toward fans and players.
In 2012, the league made its first real move to improve safety by requiring rookies to use higher density maple bats.The results, the league says, have been notable with a 50-percent drop in broken bats recorded dating back as far as 2009. But there's obviously more that can be done, and that might begin with requiring teams to extend the safety netting behind home plate so that more fans are protected.
As Lawrie noted, there's almost no time for those fans to react. Something has to be done to protect their safety, and adding more netting, perhaps from dugout to dugout, seems like the most effective option.
That's something the Red Sox and many teams will have to consider in the coming weeks. Right now though, the concern is with the fan and wishing for her full recovery.
'First and foremost, our thoughts and concern, and certainly our prayers, go out to the woman that was struck with the bat, her and her family,'' Red Sox manager John Farrell said. ''A scary moment, certainly."
"All you can think about is a family, they come to a ballgame to hopefully get three hours of enjoyment, and unfortunately with how close our stands are to the field of action, an accident like this tonight is certainly disturbing.''
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