Army hockey player recovering after serious neck injury

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) — Army hockey coach Brian Riley is crediting a team trainer with potentially saving the life of forward Eric Huss, who suffered a severe neck injury caused by a skate during a game at Sacred Heart on Thursday.

Huss, a junior from Dallas, Texas, caught an inadvertent skate to the neck in the second period of Army’s 5-0 loss to the Pioneers in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Trainer Rachel Leahy rushed into action and took measures to control the bleeding, team officials said.

Huss was recovering and expected to return to the West Point campus Friday after undergoing surgery at a hospital.

“A terrible tragedy was avoided tonight because of the quick action of our trainer and the medical staff that were in the arena tonight,” Riley tweeted. “Grateful that our player will be ok because of them.”

The team posted a photo on social media Friday of Huss in a hospital bed giving a thumbs up.

The injury came almost exactly a year after a Connecticut high school hockey player died from a similar neck wound from a skate.

On Jan. 6 of last year, Benjamin Edward “Teddy” Balkind, 16, a member of the hockey team at the private coeducational St. Luke’s School in New Canaan, died following a game at the Brunswick School, a college preparatory school in Greenwich for boys. His death spurred calls to examine safety equipment in youth sports.