Fan Dies In Fall From Stands At Texas Rangers Game
The word “fan” is derived from “fanatic” and although Shannon Stone may have considered himself a “die hard fan” of theTexas Rangers, death was not the plan as he reached for a ball tossed into the stands by Rangers left fielder Josh Hamilton in Arlington yesterday.
Stone, a 39-year-old firefighter from Brownwood, Texas, was attending the game with his son when he tried to retrieve a ball tossed in the crowd in the second inning and fell approximately 20 feet near the Oakland A’s bullpen.
“We had a very tragic accident tonight, and one of our fans lost his life reaching over the wall trying to catch a ball,” Rangers president Nolan Ryan told reporters afterward, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports.
In less than an hour, Shannon was en route to the hospital but went into full cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at 8:26 p.m.
A’s reliever Brad Ziegler was one of the players near him as he got medical attention.
Stone was still conscious when he was on the stretcher and Ziegler said, “He was staying stuff like, ‘Please check on my son.’ And people were telling him, ‘We’ll check on your son, sir.’ I think he had his arm splinted from falling, but he was conscious and moving. To come in and find out about this is just tough.”
Ronnie Hargis, a fan sitting near Stone, tried to prevent the accident but couldn’t. “I tried to grab him, but I couldn’t,” Hargis told the Star-Telegram. “I tried to slow him down a little bit. He went straight down.”
