A student-athlete at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Mich., who was struck in the chest by a 16-pound hammer at a meet is suing both Aquinas College and the NCAA, alleging that their negligence was responsible for her “severe and permanent injuries.”
As reported by mlive, citing the lawsuit filed last month in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, Maria Widmann volunteered to assist with the Al Owens Classic Track and Field Meet held on GVSU’s campus in the spring of 2023.
A student-athlete at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Mich., who was struck in the chest by a 16-pound hammer at a meet is suing both Aquinas College and the NCAA, alleging that their negligence was responsible for her “severe and permanent injuries.”
As reported by mlive, citing the lawsuit filed last month in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, Maria Widmann volunteered to assist with the Al Owens Classic Track and Field Meet held on GVSU’s campus in the spring of 2023.
Widmann, a sophomore distance runner for GVSU at the time, was assigned to assist with the hammer throw event and tasked with collecting the hammers — heavy metal balls attached to a handle by a wire — that were thrown by the competitors during warm-ups.
But, as Widmann was in the process of returning one hammer, she was hit by another hammer thrown by an Aquinas College athlete, which “broke her ribs and caused her to fall to the ground and writhe violently in pain,” the lawsuit said.
The cost of treating her injuries topped $100,000, according to the lawsuit.
Widmann has appeared on the GVSU track roster as a distance runner in each of the two years since the incident, and has continued to compete past 2023, according to her bio information. She placed fourth in the 10,000 meters at the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Outdoor Championships with a personal best time of 36:56:56 in May 2024.
The suit alleges that Aquinas failed to properly supervise its athletes and to instruct them in safe practices for the hammer thrown.
A spokesman for Aquinas College, a small liberal arts school in Grand Rapids, was “unable to comment on pending litigation.”
The suit also alleges that the NCAA had failed to create adequate safety rules for the hammer throw and had set insufficient standards for the safety cages used in the event, mlive's Matthew Miller reported.
The NCAA did not respond to a message sent Tuesday seeking comment.
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Widmann is being represented by David Schwaner, a Chicago attorney who also represented the parents of Ethan Roser, a college student killed by a thrown hammer in 2017, in a lawsuit against the NCAA. That case was settled out of court.
This news comes as another fatality caused by an errant hammer throw occurred this past weekend in Colorado. A 57-year-old parent spectator was struck by a hammer thrown during a club meet for high school athletes held indoors at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs.
