Head Injury Worries Murray

To better understand how close the Kings came to losing Coach Andy Murray, all one has to do is look at the truck he was driving when he crashed off a Wisconsin highway the morning after Valentine’s Day.

“I felt sick to my stomach,” said Murray’s wife, Ruth, about the feeling she had when she first saw the demolished truck. “The passenger side was just totally crushed down. The person who towed it in said he’s surprised the person that was in it got out.”

Murray, 50, not only survived the single-car accident but the strong-willed coach is still hoping to be behind the King bench when they play at Columbus on Tuesday night even though doctors have told him it’s not likely because of the injuries he suffered.

If Murray only had to deal with the four broken ribs, separated left shoulder, fractured left wrist and numerous cuts, it would be a good bet that he’d be back with the team by Tuesday.

But the accident has had a more lasting effect. For the last six days, Murray has been suffering from post-concussion syndrome and the head injury has knocked him off his feet.

“For the first few days after the accident, it was all about my ribs and shoulder. My head wasn’t really part of the equation,” Murray said Sunday night at his home. “My head seemed OK at first. I was able to hold normal conversations and talk to people. I was able to make phone calls and stuff like that.”

But Tuesday night, that all changed. Murray began to experience severe headaches and vomiting, and that’s the way it has been since. It got so bad Friday that his wife took him to a local emergency room and he spent the night in a hospital.

When Murray was sent home Saturday, doctors told him to avoid interaction with people as much as possible and to stay in bed over the weekend. Murray did exactly that and even missed most of Sunday’s Olympic gold-medal hockey game between the U.S. and Canada despite being one of the proudest Canadians.

With his left arm and wrist in a sling, Murray was able to greet visitors later in the evening but he had a slight shakiness when he spoke.

“I just feel kind of blase, like I’m in a little bit of an ozone layer,” he said. “I’m hoping that I won’t feel this way too much longer.”

Murray knows that he’s fortunate to be alive.

While driving a late-model Ford truck he had given his older son, Braden, Murray left his home at 4 a.m. on Feb. 15. He was headed to Madison, Wis., to watch the 17-year-old play in a high school hockey tournament when he lost control while traveling about 65 mph and skidded off icy Interstate 90 outside of Sparta, Wis.

Murray’s truck slid off the highway, crashed through a wire fence and rolled several times down an embankment through a wooded area. The vehicle landed on its roof after a tree stopped it only a few feet before it would have plunged into a shallow trout stream. Murray suffered a deep cut on his right wrist when he crawled out the driver’s side window, which also was crushed.

Monroe County Sheriff Chuck Amundson said Murray was in one of about “four or five” cars that slid off the road within a 15-minute span after an early morning storm slightly iced over the highway.

“It happened so quick that I’m not sure if I lost any consciousness,” Murray said. “I remember a truck driver telling the police that he saw my truck roll four or five times.”

What amazed Amundson was how Murray climbed up the embankment back to the highway. With so many injuries, Murray left a noticeable path of blood up the hill.

King General Manager Dave Taylor called to check on Murray’s progress Sunday night and the coach told him that he’s still optimistic that he’ll be able to return soon. How soon is anyone’s guess.

“We’re relying on [Murray] to determine whether he’s ready to return based on the advice he gets from doctors,” Taylor said. “We certainly are hoping that he’s able to join [the Kings in Ohio today]. He said that he feels that he’s made some progress.”

Murray, who has dealt with concussions as a youth playing hockey and football, will be examined by doctors today and remains optimistic that the worst is behind him.

“I think they are going to check me out pretty closely,” Murray said. “They’ve been very concerned about slow bleeding on the brain. That’s one thing that has to be addressed.”

Determining whether Murray has recovered enough to join the team will be difficult. Although Murray isn’t a player, he probably will face some of the same problems that NHL players Paul Kariya and Eric Lindros dealt with during their post-concussion syndrome battles.

“A post-concussion syndrome is not deadly but it does make people miserable,” said Dr. Assibi Abudu, who has treated hundreds of head injuries as an emergency room physician in the Los Angeles-area over the last 12 years. “It can really lead to emotional problems later from depression, nervousness and anger. But the worst is memory impairment.... Every neurologist will tell you that time is the best treatment.”

Defeating long odds, however, is nothing new to Murray, who made the jump from coaching at Shattuck-St. Mary’s, a prep school in Faribault, to taking over the Kings three seasons ago.

Fortitude has always been Murray’s trademark.

It’s been such a strong trait that Braden Murray told his father that he was surprised that after his accident, he didn’t hitchhike and still make the game.

Taylor said that if Murray is unable to join the Kings on their first trip after the league’s Olympic break, assistant coaches Dave Tippett, Mark Hardy and Ray Bennett will continue to run the team in his absence.

“If there’s doubt, we want to make sure that he’s ready to return,” Taylor said. “But as of now, we expect him to be with us.”

Murray wouldn’t want it any other way.

“I want to be at the game but I don’t want to be a hindrance at all,” he said.

“If I’m feeling the way that I’ve been feeling right now, I don’t know if I could, but I’m hoping that I will feel better.”