Baseball fan hit by a broken bat, receives life-threatening injuries

A BASEBALL fan was sitting with her young son when a broken bat hit her in the head, leaving her with life-threatening injuries.

A FEMALE fan suffered a “violent” life-threatening head injury after being hit by a broken bat that flew into the crowd during a baseball game in Boston.

The woman was carried out of the Fenway Park stands on a stretcher, bleeding from the head, after being struck by the bat of Oakland’s Brett Lawrie which broke when he hit the ball during the second inning, the New York Post reported.

She had been sitting in the second row with her husband and son.

“You try to keep her in your thoughts and, hopefully, everything’s all right and try to get back to the task at hand,” Lawrie said. “Hopefully everything’s OK and she’s doing all right.

“I’ve seen bats fly out of guys’ hands in(to) the stands and everyone’s OK, but when one breaks like that, has jagged edges on it, anything can happen.”

A fan was accidentally hit in the head with a broken bat during a baseball game.

Alex Merlis said he was sitting in the row behind the woman when the incident happened.

“It was violent,” he said of the impact to her forehead and top of her head. “She bled a lot. A lot. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that.”

Merlis said the woman had been sitting with a small child and a man. After she was injured, the man was tending to her and other people were trying to console the distraught child, he said.

Concerned about a rash of flying broken bats and the danger they posed, Major League Baseball studied the issue in 2008 and implemented a series of changes to bat regulations for the following season.

Boston Red Sox medical personnel tend to a woman, who with was hit by a wooden shard, off a broken bat.

Police say the fan has life threatening injuries.

Multi-piece bat failures are down about 50 per cent since the beginning of the 2009 season, MLB spokesman Michael Teevan told Associated Press.

“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.”

Originally published as Baseball fan hit by a broken bat, receives life-threatening injuries