NHL
Seattle Thunderbirds defenseman Joe Gramer was injured in a game on Saturday night. Brian Liesse / WHL
On Saturday night at the accesso ShoWare Center in Kent, Wash., Seattle Thunderbirds defenseman Joe Gramer was unconscious for more than two minutes after a hit sent him crashing head-first into the boards.
In a moment, a group of people in the arena sprang into action to prevent a tragedy. In recent days, members of the Thunderbirds staff walked The Athletic through the scary moment from multiple vantage points.
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Gramer is doing OK and is now in the WHL’s concussion protocol. He’s expected to make a full recovery.
The reaction of those around him was a testament to their collective preparedness.
Tom Orr was watching Gramer advance the puck up the left boards and into the neutral zone from his usual spot on the Thunderbirds’ bench. He had a clear vantage point as Portland Winterhawks forward Carsyn Dyck lined up a hit at center ice and pushed Gramer off balance, sending him crashing head-first into the boards.
Initially, he couldn’t tell that Gramer was unconscious, but he’d seen enough to know that he needed to race out across the ice “right away” for a potential head and neck injury. And as a scrum formed around Gramer, he knew he had to get there fast for “an extra layer of protection” and to make sure he didn’t get stepped on.
Orr, the Thunderbirds’ athletic trainer, was across the ice and to Gramer’s side 13 seconds after the hit was delivered, pushing a Winterhawks player and Thunderbirds rookie Brock England’s swinging stick out of his path on his way in. Three seconds after he’d gone down to one knee to check on Gramer, his fist was already in the air; the WHL’s universal signal used by its athletic trainers to call for emergency help.
In those three seconds, he’d identified that Gramer was unconscious and checked his breathing to find an “agonal breathing pattern,” which the Cleveland Clinic describes as an unconscious reflex and “near-death condition where a person gasps and moans (and) their face may grimace as if they’re in pain.”
After clenching his fist, he saw the Thunderbirds’ ice guy run off from the Zamboni door, and he knew that he was headed to alert paramedics. Another 13 seconds later, Winterhawks athletic trainer Rich Campbell was also by his side, helping him roll Gramer onto his back.
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Before a minute had passed following the hit, they’d started chest compressions in an effort to ensure blood circulation to the brain.
“They are performing CPR. Oh my goodness. They’re doing chest compressions on Joe Gramer right now at center ice,” Thunderbirds play-by-play announcer Thom Beuning said on the broadcast.
As it happened, the Thunderbirds’ cameras panned wide to avoid the picture as both teams’ players rested on one knee, Gramer’s Seattle teammates with their heads in their hands and then eventually their arms around each other.
Video courtesy of the Seattle Thunderbirds
Behind them on the Thunderbirds bench, head coach Matt O’Dette hadn’t seen the hit because he was writing something down on his game card. But he’d heard the crash and lifted his head to see the scrum forming and Gramer “crumpled up on the ice in a fetal position” below it. He didn’t see Orr’s fist go up in the commotion of the scrum either. His first thought, because of the position he was in, was that it was his shoulder. But when Campbell arrived, and O’Dette could see the pair of trainers listening for breathing and then a pulse, he knew that it was a dire, “potentially lifesaving situation.”
Paramedics arrived within a minute, and after the two athletic trainers found a pulse, they shifted their focus to getting him onto a backboard and stretchered him off into the tunnel.
They were met there by Gramer’s dad, Rob, who happened to be in the building for the game, and began to panic and work his way down the ice when he saw them doing chest compressions. Though staff work to make sure parents don’t go on the ice in emergency situations, Rob was allowed to be with him in the tunnel as they did further tests, checking his neck, extremities, sensations and movement control.
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Halfway off the ice on the stretcher, Gramer finally came to, according to Orr, nearly three minutes after the hit had been delivered. (“He was unconscious that entire span,” Orr said.)
Though he was disoriented, he was responsive and told the two trainers, “I’m fine, I just want to play, get me back out there,” which they took as a positive.
With 2:13 left in the second period, the players were sent to the dressing room, and Dyck was assessed a five-minute major for boarding and a game misconduct.
While Orr, Campbell and the EMTs helped get Gramer loaded into the ambulance, O’Dette and Thunderbirds team president Colin Campbell updated general manager Bil La Forge, who was scouting a U15 AAA event and watching it all unfold online.
Meanwhile, WHL senior director of officiating and facilities Kevin Muench was also in the building for the game, so he met with the two teams’ staff to decide on the next steps.
Once O’Dette learned that Gramer was responsive, he returned to the room to update the players.
“It’s a very scary situation, Joe’s going to be OK, we know this really hits home because it’s a teammate and something you never want to see, what do you want to do?” he asked them.
After the players discussed it, knowing that Gramer was going to be OK, they were adamant they wanted to finish and get the win for Gramer.
Typically, a member of the team’s staff would have gone with Gramer to the hospital, but because his dad was there, Rob went with him in the ambulance.
Seattle won 5-3, and Gramer was released from the hospital around midnight.
Rob extended his stay to Wednesday so that he could be with him, and the next day, when the players arrived back at the rink to get onto the bus for a road trip to Wenatchee, Wash., Gramer, still in his hospital clothes because his phone and clothes had been left at the rink, showed up and spoke briefly with the team.
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A few days have now passed, and those in the Thunderbirds organization are still wrapping their heads around the events of Saturday night.
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“I couldn’t imagine the feeling of him watching that in the building,” O’Dette said of what Rob’s experience must have been like. “But I think it was good that he was there, and I can’t imagine watching that from afar on TV and having that helpless feeling. He was there to help comfort Joe.”
Beuning knew firsthand that Gramer was in good hands because earlier this season, while getting off the Thunderbirds’ team bus at the border on a trip back from Penticton, British Columbia, he collapsed and fell unconscious, and Orr had also performed emergency CPR on him.
“It’s all too real for us,” O’Dette said. “Our players and all of us saw that emergency situation (with Beuning). So that was two times in a short span, stuff that you don’t want to see.”
Orr knew Gramer was in good hands with Campbell’s additional help, too, because Orr had actually been a student of Campbell’s in grad school and they’d practiced for moments like this in August at the WHL’s bi-annual first response training in Calgary.
“Credit to Tom and Rich and (the) on-site staff that was ready to react immediately. That’s Tom doing his thing,” O’Dette said. “Tom’s a heck of a trainer, and he was quick to react twice to perform CPR. We’re lucky to have him. He’s running out there, he’s pushing guys out of the way to get to our player — it gives us peace of mind knowing that he’s at the ready as quickly as someone can be. Everyone reacted so quickly and calmly and was there to help Joe.”
Orr is proud of the way everyone reacted, too.
“We’re more than just massage therapists and taping ankles. We’re jacks of all trades who have wide skill sets,” he said of his fraternity of athletic trainers.
All of La Forge, O’Dette and Orr are also cognizant of the fact that, on top of the scare, this has also been a whirlwind couple of weeks for Gramer.
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He signed with the Thunderbirds just 10 days before the hit, leaving the NCAA and the University of Nebraska Omaha to fill Seattle’s last 20-year-old slot — four years after he’d attended their training camp as a 16-year-old and they’d tried to sign him, but he wanted to go the college path. The game was just his fifth with the team.
“He has been a really big add for us. We were comfortable with the family, they were comfortable with us, and it was a pretty smooth transition. And on the ice, he’s a mature kid that has added a lot of stability to our back end,” La Forge said of Gramer. “We’re a very young team, so bringing a veteran 20-year-old in who has played college hockey is really a stabilizing force for us. We’ve been really impressed, and we look forward to him coming back when he’s healthy and helping us for the remainder of the year.”
Scott Wheeler covers the NHL draft and prospects nationally for The Athletic. Scott has written for the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, The Toronto Sun, the National Post, and several other outlets in the past. He’s also the author of ‘On The Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Toronto Maple Leafs at the NHL Draft’. Follow Scott on Twitter @scottcwheeler
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