Two baseball teams - one from a high school in Northern California and the other from a Division II university in Pennsylvania - underwent life-changing experiences this week that had nothing to do with their performances on the field.
On Wednesday, 16 varsity and junior varsity players from Valley High School in Elk Grove, Calif., were in the middle of their final practice of the season when they heard cries for help from a 16-year-old girl pinned under a nearby car. Together, they lifted the four-door sedan while varsity coach James Millholland pulled the girl to safety. "We all just ran out there as a team," Millholland told KCRA-TV. "No one was saying much, and then the guys got around the car and just lifted it up. There was very little talking."
"It was like a reaction," baseball player Chas Roberts added. "You had to do what you had to do to save someone's life."
According to police, the girl (who attends a different school and whose name has not been released), was being dropped off at an after-school program at Valley High when her mother shifted the vehicle into reverse, accidentally running over her daughter. The girl reportedly suffered ear and arm injuries but is expected to recover.
Two days earlier, seven members of the Millersville University of Pennsylvania baseball team - in Johnstown, Pa., for a tournament and en route to grabbing a late-night bite - saved the life of a 1-year-old boy.
"We heard two people screaming in a car, and it turned into driveway right in front of us," third baseman Zach Stone told Lancaster Online. "A dad hopped out of a car and picked up his kid. He just looked limp. ... The kid didn't look like he had any life to him."
"He was screaming and yelling, 'My son is choking! He's having a seizure! Somebody help!' " added catcher Dave Pine.
And, as reporter Cindy Stauffer writes, "That's what the team did."
Time seemed to slow down for a few long moments as the team ran to the family just as the child's mother laid the tot down on the ground.
Chambersburg High School health class came rushing back to Tyler McDonald, 21, another third baseman.
"I started doing the checklist of CPR," McDonald said.
McDonald calmly told the child's panicking father, Shane Norman, to take off his jacket and put it under the little boy's head, to tilt it back and open his airway.
He told the child's frantic mother, Megan, who was trying to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation, to move the child's tongue out of the way and make sure nothing was blocking his breathing. McDonald then put his ear down next to the child's mouth, to feel if he was still breathing.
In the meantime, Pine called 911 on his cell phone, scanning the nearby street signs and summoning an ambulance. … For his part, Stone knelt down beside the child and checked for a pulse, taking his small hand in his, hoping to feel him squeeze it or show a sign of life.
Other team members calmed the parents, and huddled over the child, to keep the rain from falling on him.
And then Braydin Norman, almost 2 years old, opened his eyes.
The boy was transported to a hospital via ambulance. Doctors say he had a virus that caused a 104.3-degree fever, which is why the Norman family was out driving at 1 a.m.; they were headed to the hospital, anyway. After Braydin recovered, the family tracked down the Marauders at the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Tournament at Point Stadium in Johnstown, where Stauffer chronicled the emotional reunion.
"We came there just for baseball, and we ran into this family who needed our help," Stone said. "There's a lot more to life than baseball."
