By now anyone that follows Hockey in Hungary know about what happened to Fehérvár AV19 defenceman Devon Krogh during the overtime period against UTE on Tuesday.
As you are reading this Devon Krogh is sitting in a hospital room in good spirits and is now recovering from surgery. The next steps for Devon is to be back on the ice as soon as possible and help his team perform well and make the playoffs. He will have the support of his coaches, teammates, the Fehérvár organization and the fans of the team until then.
This article isn’t about Devon Krogh or how his team will play without him, this is about what only a couple hundred people saw who were in the stands, this is about everyone else that did something that help save someone's life, the behind the scenes untold story.
....Krogh grabs his neck and starts to skate to the bench slowly as if he took a hit, he looks a bit woozy as he is escorted by an official to the bench, suddenly referee Vladimir Babic make a quick move to the bench grabs a towel or rag of some sorts and jumps back to Devon. Suddenly Devon goes down on his knees, a split second later head coach Tyler Dietrich and assistant Lajos Énekes jump off the bench and are on the ice. The oncall medical staff was at the far end of the Újpest bench, a heads up Fehérvár player sprints towards the medical staff and on his way an UTE player joins him as they make the dash to the three person medical. The medical staff is dragged across the ice in full escort from players from both teams who are thinking on their feet. As this is going on Tamás Gröschl takes off towards the Zamboni entrance to with a couple players following to get the goal out of the way, open up the doors and get the stretcher and a clear path to the ambulance. Brance Orbán went over to the stands and told Máté Arany that needed to come and translate. Devon was on the stretcher and whisked off the ice with the medical staff and coaches Dietrich and Énekes. It didn't take long for the officiating crew to decided suspend the game. From start to finish the events only took a couple of minutes max but for some people in the stands or players on either team it might have been an eternity. He was rushed to the hospital and the doctors took great care of him and he is doing fine.
There were a number of people whose quick reactions lead to Devon being fine. It was the quick thinking under pressure by the medical staff, Babic, Deitrich, Énekes, Orbán, Gröschl and countless other players on the ice from both UTE and Fehérvár that lead to this story not ending in a different way.
„I was two meters away so I saw what happened, I stopped the play right away. I saw a cut on the players’ neck which didn’t bleed yet, but I put my hand on it and pushed it while we skated from the net to the bench and I yelled for a doctor. When they threw me the towel I let go of the cut for a while and he started to bleed heavy and he collapsed. Than we pressed the wound with the towel, both of the Fehérvár coaches jumped to the ice to help and the doctors arrived as well. You see cases like this on TV or online, but you would never want to have this experience.” – said Vladimir Babic following the game, than he added humbly that he isn’t a hero, he was just the one who was there at the moment and did what he had to.
“Devon is doing well and he is in very good care, and the support he is getting is awesome, so that is very comforting” said Tyler Dietrich Wednesday early afternoon.
Tyler also wanted to thank the UTE organization and specifically head coach Zoltán Szilassy “Our whole team was so impressed with how UTE handled the event (both on and off the ice), Zoli was unreal, they brought food to the players and had some kind words, nothing but respect for them.”
Tyler also of course wanted to mention that Vladimir Babic was amazing how reacted and stayed calm considering what had happened.