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发帖数: 22187 | 1 http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/12299896/
At the age of 8, he was flying home with his family from their lake house in
Michigan, his father piloting the plane as he always did. On approach into
Fort Wayne, Indiana, something went terribly wrong and the plane crashed,
exploding in flames on the side of a small country road in Uniondale.
Austin's mother, Julie; his older sister, Lindsay; and his little brother,
Ian -- all seated in the back -- were killed. Austin, seated in the jump
seat across from his dad, believes he survived in part because his father,
severely burned himself, threw him from the wreckage.
Nearly eight years later -- with some sort of normal re-established after
Stephen remarried, to a local woman named Kimberly Neal -- Austin and his
parents boarded Stephen's plane again to go to Walloon Lake. They were going
to celebrate Austin's decision to play basketball at the University of
Michigan.
Almost 17 miles west of the lake, in the city of Charlevoix, Michigan,
something went terribly wrong again. The plane crashed, and Stephen and Kim,
along with their sheltie, Ally, were killed. Another dog, a Labradoodle
named Brady, and Austin survived, though the 16-year-old suffered a brain
injury so severe doctors thought he might spend the rest of his life
bedridden.
If the story had ended there, when the crumpled shell of the plane came to
rest in an unoccupied garage, this would be a sad story, one about an
uncommon boy -- an uncommonly tragic boy.
Except the story is just beginning.
Austin Hatch is 20 now. Three-and-a-half years removed from that second
crash, he is a freshman at the University of Michigan, and in December he
scored his first point -- a free throw -- as a Division I college basketball
player. He is not back to where he was as an athlete -- cognitively he can'
t process the speed of the game as well as he once did -- but although he
continues to push to get there, that is no longer his priority.
Basketball will be what basketball will be, but his life? Now there's an
adventure he knows he's ready for and can't wait to experience. |
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