Former Westlake Star Hurt in Crash : Car accident: Jim Henderson is in serious condition in Buffalo, four games into his professional baseball career.

Jim Henderson, a former Westlake High baseball standout, was in serious condition Friday at Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo after an early morning automobile accident outside Jamestown, N.Y.

The accident involved four players and the trainer of the Class-A Jamestown Expos. Shortstop Danny Lane, formerly of Laguna Beach High and UC Santa Barbara, was unhurt.

The trainer, 24-year-old Lee Slagle of Lafayette, Ala., was charged with drunk driving.

Henderson, 23, who completed his eligibility at Arizona State this season and recently signed a free-agent contract with the Expos, sustained back, neck and forehead injuries. After early paralysis, he regained full movement on his left side and some feeling on his right, according to his mother, Barbara Berg. Henderson was scheduled to undergo surgery.

“Obviously they can’t promise anything,” Berg said. “But the doctors went as far as saying there was a good possibility they could make him normal.”

Ellicott, N.Y., police Sgt. Ira Rhodes said the car driven by Slagle was returning to Jamestown, shortly after midnight. Slagle attempted to pass a tractor-trailer truck on a four-lane eastbound stretch of Route 17, Rhodes said. The car went over a median and skidded 300 feet before rolling over.

“This team is blessed those guys are still alive,” Jamestown Manager Q.V. Lowe told Scott Kindberg of the Jamestown Post-Journal.

Lowe visited the hospitalized players.

“One of them said, ‘When the car went airborne, I thought I was dead,’ ” Lowe said.

The crash came four days after Jamestown began its New York-Pennsylvania League season.

Lane had appeared in all four games before Friday, going one for nine, driving in a run and scoring twice. Henderson was one for three, with three runs batted in and two runs scored.

Henderson, a catcher and designated hitter, also played at Arizona State.

Other players in the car were first baseman Tom Doyle, 21, of Burnsville, Minn., and pitcher Rodney Henderson, 21, of Glasgow, Ky. Both sustained minor injuries.

Times staff writer Steven Herbert contributed to this story.