State of Shock : ‘Heroic’ Efforts of Coach Praised, But Some Parents Ask Why Game Wasn’t Called Off When Lightning Threatened

Parents and friends of eight girl softball players who were burned and thrown to the ground like so many rag dolls by a lightning bolt Saturday in Tustin gathered anxiously in the waiting areas of hospital emergency rooms.

Wiping away tears and hugging each other for comfort, some were asking why the game had not been called off when thunderclouds threatened. They also wanted to know why, when lightning had been seen nearby, a coach ordered the young players under a towering oak tree on the softball field at Edgewood Elementary School, a private school in Tustin.

“She’s in a state of absolute shock,” said Jim Meyers of his 10-year-old daughter, Wendy Ann, who lay in the emergency room of Western Medical Center in Santa Ana late Saturday with second-degree burns on her legs and hands and an irregular heartbeat.

Meyers, a 45-year-old Santa Ana electrician, added: “She can’t recall anything about the lightning. . . . It was just too awful.”

The girls, jolted by lightning along with an assistant coach at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, were warming up for a softball game in the Tustin Bobby Sox League, a 31-team organization for girls 5 to 15 years old in Tustin, Orange and Santa Ana.

The girls, 8 to 10 years old, and the coach were taken to four Orange County hospitals. Seven of the girls were treated for burns and shock; two were reported in serious condition and five in stable condition. The eighth girl and assistant coach Steve Nicolai were treated for minor injuries and released, authorities said.

Despite the tragic accident, Meyers and other parents and friends praised what they said were “heroic” efforts by head coach John Bates--who gave the order to go under the tree--and by spectators in the seconds after the bolt struck in the schoolyard in the 1800 block of Lassen Drive.

Yet several parents questioned why Bobby Sox officials and coaches did not call off the game as the storm approached.

“I think this all could have been prevented,” said Jan Meyers, Wendy’s mother.

As Jan Meyers and other parents awaited word of the condition of their daughters, all of whom suffered varying degrees of burns to their hands and feet, they recounted the events leading up to the lightning strike.

Jan Meyers recalled that shortly before the game began, she heard thunder and saw lightning while driving on the Costa Mesa Freeway on her way to shop.

She got off at the next exit and headed instead to the softball diamond, where she said she asked a Bobby Sox official, whose name she could not recall, to call off the game.

“He told me that the only way that the game could be called off was if the girls forfeited the game,” Meyers said.

But Bart Beckman, president of the Tustin Bobby Sox League, said no parent asked officials to cancel the game because of bad weather.

Beckman’s version was supported by Carrie Maggard Leach, the mother of injured Bobby Soxer Katie Maggard, 8.

Leach said that as skies darkened and thunder rumbled in the distance, some parents stood on the sidelines discussing whether the game between the Waves and the Candy Canes should be canceled.

“But if we had done it by ourselves, we would have had to forfeit the game,” Leach said. “So, we were just standing there waiting for the umpires to make the decision.”

It started to drizzle shortly before 11:30 a.m., and Bates, the Waves’ coach, ordered the girls off the field and under a tree.

In an interview at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, Bates defended his actions.

“There was no lightning before I told the girls to get under the tree,” Bates said. “And there was no thunder.

“Sure it was overcast,” he said. “But earlier that morning, the sun had been shining. This all happened so suddenly.”

While defending Bates, Kya Whitfield, whose daughter, Kaylee, was among the more seriously injured, said thunder could be heard several minutes before the bolt hit the tree. A minute before, lightning struck nearby.

But she added, “It happened so fast. . . . I know that you’re not supposed to go under a tree when it’s raining and lightning like that. But I ran under another tree myself--and even opened my umbrella.”

Whitfield sighed, shook her head and said: “It happened so fast, and you didn’t have time to think. I don’t think anybody else in the same situation would have done anything different.”

Most parents emphasized the positive. Bates, the head coach, spent the afternoon going from one hospital emergency room to another, attempting to comfort the parents of the girls, even though his own daughter, Carrie, was being treated at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange.

Although Steve Nicolai, the Waves’ assistant coach, had undergone triple bypass heart surgery earlier this year and was knocked to the ground by the force of the bolt, he mustered enough strength to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation to Beth Carillo, who was laying lifeless and turning blue because she was unable to breathe.

And Bates ran 10 feet to Kaylee Whitfield, who was turning blue, and gave her CPR, which many parents said saved her life.

Leach, whose hair was singed by the lightning strike, said she was standing near her daughter at the base of the 50-foot oak when the bolt hit.