A high school football player in Indiana was critically injured over the weekend while taking part in a between-innings fan event at a Richmond Flying Mummies baseball game that reportedly involved "inflatable bubbles."
According to the Palladium-Item, the two players from Richmond High School were taken to the hospital after participating in the event at Don McBride Stadium. The Flying Mummies are part of the Northwest League, a High-A Minor League Baseball circuit.
In a release, Richmond High School said it will have "coaches, mentors and staff available for anyone seeking counseling services in the wake of Saturday's accident.
The football team also offered support.
"We ask our entire Richmond community to come together in prayer for both athletes, their families, their teammates, our coaches, and everyone who has been impacted by this extremely unfortunate event," a release on the team's Facebook page said.
The game the football players were participating in involves getting into two inflated balls. The contestants then run at each other and and whoever's left standing, is pronounced the winner.
"One's at third base and one's at first, and they run together and meet about second base, and they bounce off each other," said witness Darcy Irwin, who attended the game with her family.
"Usually people get up, there's a lot of cheering. But after this happened, you could tell something was wrong," Darcy Erwin, a witness to the event, told News 9. "The energy out of the stadium was gone. The players started taking knees and praying, and you know something serious happened. The way it looked from the stands, they were just running full speed at each other, and being football players, they tucked their heads and collided."
