Kansas bat boy dies after being hit in head by bat
WICHITA, Kan. – The 9-year-old bat boy for the Liberal Bee Jays has passed away after he was accidentally hit in the head by a bat swung by a Bee Jay’s player on Saturday.
In a Facebook post, the Liberal Bee Jays released this statement Sunday night:
Early Monday morning, the National Baseball Congress World Series released this statement.
According to witness Jim Parks, the incident took place after one of the Bee Jay’s batters had struck out and the batter on deck was taking practice swings.
Parks said Kaiser Carlile, the bat boy and a Bee Jays superfan, was running to pick up a bat on the ground when the on-deck batter took a practice swing and accidentally hit the boy in the head.
“He was swinging, and it hit him in the helmet, knocked him down, he got back up, but he went right back down again,” said Parks.
He was taken by EMS crews at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium to a Via Christi St. Francis hospital in critical condition.
Luckily, EMS crews were close by, already helping Janice Van Dyke, who was having a dizzy spell. EMT’s were checking her vitals.
“Over the speakers came a child had been hit at the ballpark, the one lady working on me finished working on me while the other one grabbed her defibrillator and her oxygen and ran out of the ambulance,” said Van Dyke.
Van Dyke says it was a blessing emergency crews were so close, able to get to Kaiser’s aid right away.
“They were here for me, and I’m fine but being on the property made them able to get to that boy sooner,” said Van Dyke.
The Bee Jays are in Wichita for the NBC World Series tournament.
As most already know, our 9 year old, precious batboy, Kaiser Carlile was accidentally struck by a bat during the game against the San Diego Waves this afternoon. Kaiser was wearing a helmet. He has been our batboy for most of the games this summer. He was a part of the team.
-Nathan McCaffrey President, Liberal Bee Jay