Michigan basketball commit Austin Hatch is still in critical condition following a Friday night plane crash that killed his father and step-mother. At the time the news of the crash broke on Saturday, details about what happened or Hatch's condition were scarce, but since then a lot of new information has come out.
As it stands right now, Hatch is in a drug-induced coma because of the injuries sustained in the crash. The Indiana News Center reported this about the specific injuries Hatch is dealing with:
"I got off the phone with a good friend of ours, Dr. Bob VanHorn, and he and his wife Renee were at the hospital today (Saturday). Bob said that they had induced coma and he's currently resting comfortably. He does have some broken bones. From what Bob told me, he's got some broken ribs and clavicle. He did fracture his leg, but he said that there's nothing that needs to be done as far as casting or pins, that type of thing. Both of his lungs are punctured from what I understand, but they've got that under control. The most important thing right now that they're monitoring is that he has a fractured skull and he has some swelling on the brain."
The Detroit Free Press spoke to Hatch's high school coach, who said that the plan is to bring Hatch out of the drug-induced coma on Monday. Dr. G. David Bojrab added this:
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."
As for what exactly caused the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the matter. A preliminary report is expected to be released in the next 10 days, but a final report could take as long as 18 months to be released. All we know for the time being is that the plane the Hatch family was on crashed into a house's garage near the Charlevoix Municipal Airport. The Hatches were on their way to their summer home when the crash happened. This is the same summer home they were returning from in 2003 when Austin Hatch and his father survived a plane crash that killed his mother and two siblings.