Silvertips fan hit by puck is on the mend

EVERETT — It was a Saturday night Everett Silvertips game, and Glenda Smith was the only person in her row wearing glasses.

Perhaps a mundane detail at the outset, but before the night was over an emergency room doctor would credit those glasses for saving the Arlington resident’s right eye.

It’s been three weeks since that night and Smith does a double-take every time she looks in the mirror. Because she couldn’t see, she couldn’t drive. She was hit so hard, even her teeth hurt, limiting her diet to mushy food.

On March 20, Smith, her husband, William Crawford, and three other couples had Silvertips tickets and decided to make an evening of it by going to dinner first.

The couples were seated in Section 117 just six rows up from the ice, just above the Silvertips’ bench.

"We were so excited because we had these great seats," Smith said. "The view there is pretty good."

"Until you eat puck," her husband added.

The shot came about 12 minutes into the game, only her second hockey game ever. As the Silvertips geared up for a power play, a player slapped a hard shot that cleared the glass.

It’s not unusual for a puck to sail into the seats even a couple of times a game. But this was a line drive.

Smith was attentively watching the game, but didn’t see it until too late.

"I saw that puck when it was about right here," Smith said, holding her hand about a foot from her face. "There wasn’t time for my brain to engage."

Her section heard what sounded like a ball hitting a wall as the speeding puck hit Smith square in the right eye.

"A lady sitting 10 rows behind me said it sounded like it hit a wall," Smith said. "I thought it had demolished the whole right side of my face. I thought my eye was gone."

For Smith and her husband, the noise of the crowd and the music faded away, and their universe became no wider than a row of seats at a hockey game.

The spectators around them pitched in until medics arrived a couple of minutes later.

At the hospital, doctors found that her eye was OK, but the impact had cut her face more than two inches, from her tear duct to the ball of her cheek.

She got 10 stitches and a CAT scan. Though she was in pain, Smith said she felt very fortunate.

"She was wearing those kind of glasses that you can hit with a hammer and not break," her husband said.

"It shattered them," she said.

Smith is one of two Silvertips fans this season to be seriously injured by a stray puck. Earlier in the season a woman was hit on the forehead and received a bruise, said Zoran Rajcic, the Silvertips’ director of sales and marketing.

"We’ve had 220,000 fans, and only two have been hit by pucks," Rajcic said.

Rajcic said all of the Everett Events Center’s protective glass and netting is regulation height.

In addition, the arena has several loudspeaker announcements before each game asking fans to keep their eyes on the game and on flying pucks.

Rajcic also noted the small print on the back of each ticket that says fans "voluntarily assume all risks and danger incidental to the event."

"It’s just like walking on the street. A comet could fall from the sky," he said. "It’s very slim in my opinion. Anything has got a probability of happening, you know?"

Rajcic said based on the angles of the glass, the top four rows in the arena’s lowest section are where stray pucks are more likely to land. But the arena was built with safety in mind, he said.

"I’m scared that people are going to get the wrong impression.," Rajcic said. "Baseballs leave the field a lot more than pucks leave the rink."

Smith knows now that the chances of her being hit that night were slim.

"I just wish I could have won the raffle instead," she said.

Smith owns her own janitorial service, so she’s been able to slow things down in the weeks since the accident.

She still has numbness in the right side of her face. Even her teeth hurt — she said it’s been hard for her to eat anything but oatmeal.

"I’ll have a scar, but knock on wood I will have no lasting symptoms," Smith said.

Rajcic said the team called Smith the day after the accident and asked her what she "felt retribution should be."

The Silvertips gave Smith tickets for two playoff games, which the couple attended. The couple also asked for season tickets next year — in seats a little higher up.

"It’s something we’re going to look into," Rajcic said. "It’s not that we’re insincere by any means, but we’re talking about $1,000" worth of tickets.

Smith said she doesn’t hold the Silvertips or the Everett Events Center responsible.

But she hopes people will keep their heads up at games, and that parents will think twice about sitting with small children in the lowest section.

"I truly believe that accidents happen," Smith said. "It was just my turn."

Reporter Jennifer Warnick: 425-339-3429 or jwarnick@heraldnet.com.

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