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Five Players, Coach Still Hospitalized After Bus Crash

Posted: 5:55 am EST March 2, 2007Updated: 2:41 pm EST March 5, 2007

Jon Betts stepped off a charter flight in Toledo, Ohio, wearing the same baseball cap that his son wore when he died in a bus crash in Atlanta.

Betts returned home to Ohio yesterday, two days after a bus crash in Georgia claimed the lives of his son, three of his Bluffton University baseball teammates, the bus driver and his wife.

In Atlanta, the coach, James Grandey, remains in the intensive care unit at Piedmont Hospital, where he is listed in critical but stable condition today. Four players are being treated at Grady Memorial Hospital, with two in critical condition, one serious and one in fair condition.

The remaining player is at Atlanta Medical Center in serious but stable condition.

Betts said since the accident he has spent a lot of time telling the players who came away with only minor injuries that "it was OK that they survived."

About 30 people walked off the flight -- one player limping, another with his arm in a sling -- and greeted those waiting on the tarmac at Toledo Express Airport with hugs. A hearse drove to the back of the plane to transport two players' bodies, that of Betts's son, David, and another player.

Also killed in Friday's crash were sophomore outfielder Tyler Williams of Lima; Scott Harmon, a freshman from Lima; and Cody Holp, a freshman from Arcanum. The driver and his wife, Jerome and Jean Niemeyer, also died.

The team from the Mennonite-affiliated university was traveling to its annual spring training in Florida when the charter bus crashed before daybreak. The bus was carrying 35 student-athletes, coaches and bus drivers. The school with 1,200 students will be closed this week for spring break.

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