Chiefs Survive Scary Bus Accident Mikhailov Most Seriously Injured, But None Still Hospitalized

Twenty-one Spokane Chiefs hockey players were on a Northwest Stage Lines bus late Sunday night when it skidded off Highway 3 and rolled an estimated 40 feet down an embankment.

When the bus came to rest next to a utility pole 12 miles east of Cranbrook, British Columbia, coach Mike Babcock did a swift accounting.

“There were guys all over the place,” he said Monday night. “There was broken glass. Everything was upside down, on the roof.”

Left winger Yegor Mikhailov, 18, was cut and bleeding. Through the dim light it was hard to tell if anyone had been ejected from the bus.

Roll was called.

Players answered by the numbers, starting with No. 1, Marc Magliarditi. When the last number was called and the player who wears it had answered, coach Mike Babcock and general manager Tim Speltz shared a moment of relief.

Both said that hearing every player answer up through the near-darkness and disorientation was “the greatest feeling I’ve ever had.”

Babcock climbed out of the bus, hiked up the snowy embankment to the road and flagged down help, Speltz said.

Meanwhile, athletic therapist T.D. Forss went about trying to stop the bleeding.

“We found out who was hurt,” he said. “It turned out to be Yegor.”

Mikhailov was cut in three places on the forehead and once on the hand, Forss said.

“Luckily, we had the training bag with the gauzes and pressure wraps so we could slow the bleeding until the ambulance came,” Forss said.

Players with lesser injuries were advised to apply pressure to cuts for 5 minutes rather than dab at the blood, Forss said.

Before he left the bus, Babcock found a pillow case for Mikhailov to soak the blood. Babcock said the jacket he was wearing was sent to the cleaners Monday, covered with blood. Mikhailov will miss this weekend’s games with the Tri-City Americans, Speltz said.

Another player, Jared Smyth, was taken from the bus on a spine board as a precaution. He is suffering from a stiff neck caused by “soft tissue damage,” Forss said, and is also not expected to play this weekend.

Four others were treated for cuts and bruises and released at the Cranbrook regional hospital. They are center John Cirjak, goaltender Aren Miller, left wing Greg Leeb and right wing Mike Haley. All are expected to play this weekend.

“They’re shaken up but OK,” Speltz told the Regina Leader-Post. “Still, if we had a game to play on Wednesday, I doubt that we could.”

The Chiefs were returning from a Sunday afternoon game in Calgary.

“It was a perfect day to travel,” Speltz said. “We got into B.C. and it rained a bit. We came over a crest and it was sheer ice. We fishtailed, the driver (Bob Mitchell) got it back, we fishtailed (again), he almost got it back and then we went over.

“It’s incredible how fast it happened.”

Most of the players walked out through the front window of the bus, Speltz said.

Asked how long Mikhailov, who was hospitalized overnight, would be out, Babcock said, “I don’t know. Right now, that doesn’t seem very important. I think we all feel real lucky. No one got much sleep last night, as you can imagine.”

Speltz and Mitchell, the driver, had X-rays taken as a precaution, Speltz said.

“It feels good to feel bad,” said Speltz, who said he thought he had bruised ribs. “I’m not hurting enough to complain about it.

“We seemed to be going very slow when we went over and then things speeded up considerably,” Speltz added. “I’ve been told we went over one and a half times, but I don’t really remember. I remember kind of being tossed once and hitting something - part of a seat I think - and going (over) again.

“When I flew the second time, that’s when I got banged up.”

A Western Hockey League team was involved in a fatal accident on Dec. 30, 1986, when a bus carrying the Swift Current Broncos skidded on ice, went down an embankment and flipped on its right side, killing four players.

“Thank God, it wasn’t a Swift Current situation,” said Ray Ference of Calgary, father of Chiefs defenseman Brad Ference.

“He’s got a fat lip and a couple of bruises, but nothing serious.”

Eric Aussman of the Cranbrook RCMP said no charges would be filed in connection with the accident.

Babcock said the driver, Mitchell, “is the best I’ve ever had in this league. There was nothing he could have done.”

The team returned home Monday on another bus sent to Cranbrook.

Spokane’s next game is Friday at Tri-City.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Map of accident site