Indiana Hoops Star in Drug-Induced Coma After Crash

An Indiana high school basketball standout who survived a plane crash that killed his father and stepmother is in a drug-induced coma as doctors monitor the badly injured 16-year-old’s brain swelling, his father’s business partner said Sunday.

Austin Hatch suffered brain bruising and swelling and deep facial cuts in Friday’s crash that killed his father, Stephen Hatch, and stepmother, Kim, but has shown some hopeful signs at a northern Michigan hospital, said Dr. G. David Bojrab.

Friday’s crash was the second one Austin has survived. A 2003 crash killed his mother and two siblings. His father was piloting both times. Austin, a high school junior from Fort Wayne, Ind., recently accepted a scholarship to attend and play basketball for the University of Michigan after graduation.

Bojrab said Austin’s brain swelling was going down and he had been moving all four limbs when doctors reduce the coma-inducing drugs they placed him on after Friday’s crash. But Bojrab said it’s unclear how soon doctors plan to take Austin off those drugs.

“They’re waiting for the brain swelling to go down,” he said. “He has bruising to the brain but there’s no structural damage as far as they can tell right now, so they’re hoping that that’s a good sign and he’ll have a better recovery or a full recovery.”

A spokeswoman for the hospital in Traverse City, Mich., said the teen remained in critical condition Sunday.

Austin’s basketball coach at Canterbury School said everyone at the private school in Fort Wayne, which has about 320 students, was stunned by the news of the deadly crash and praying that Austin survives. He said it’s “unbelievable” the youngster is now the only survivor of his immediate family.

“They’re all gone,” Kline said. “He’s the only one left. What’s the chance of that happening? A million to one, if that. It’s just unbelievable.”

Bojrab, who partnered with Stephen Hatch to open a pain-management clinic in Fort Wayne, said the Hatches were flying to their summer home on Walloon Lake in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula when his single-engine plane flew into a garage near the Charlevoix Municipal Airport. It was the same lake home Stephen Hatch and the family were returning from nearly eight years ago when they crashed in Indiana.

Family friends who live on that same Michigan lake have been with Austin since shortly after the crash and his maternal grandparents have been with him since Saturday, Bojrab said. Hatch’s paternal grandparents were on vacation in Spain celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary with Stephen Hatch’s brother and sister and their families, but they arrived back in the U.S. on Sunday, he said.

Bojrab said numerous relatives as well as friends and some of Austin’s classmates were at the hospital, but doctors are limiting the number of people who can visit him.

The National Transportation Safety Board had investigators at the crash site Saturday. NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said he expected a preliminary report within 10 days and a final report determining a cause within 18 months.

Holloway said Sunday the wreckage was being moved to a hangar at the airport and the lead investigator expected to complete the onsite investigation within a few days. There was no immediate indication of what caused the crash, Holloway said.

Kline said Austin, who is 6-foot-6, 215 pounds, is a very strong physically and he hopes that his being in good condition helps him survive.

“The doctors say the first 24 to 48 hours are critical, that they’re crucial. And we’re getting to that point right now so we’re hoping and praying for the best,” he said. “But he’s just a strong guy, a strong kid. That’s what saving him right now.”