Scott Mansch

smansch@greatfallstribune.com

Two weeks ago on a Saturday night at Centene Stadium, the Great Falls Voyagers threw a no-hitter and defeated Helena 2-0, and obviously the baseball bats weren’t connecting with much.

Except for one awful moment.

“We were sitting with a bunch of friends,” said Dr. John Molloy of Great Falls. “I just remember turning my head to visit and the next thing I know I’m covered with blood, strapped to a gurney and on my way to the hospital.”

Molloy was struck in the head by a flying baseball bat. As one of the players swung and missed, he lost control of the bat and it flew over the high netting that protects fans behind home plate and nailed Molloy in the head.

“I never knew what hit me until a couple days later,” he said. “What a fluke deal.”

Molloy spent two days in the hospital and has had one surgery with another on the way. He is home now on bed rest.

“I’m finally doing quite a bit better. It took quite a while,” Molloy said. “I still have a fair amount of issues to deal with, but nothing like it was. I’m feeling quite a lot better.”

He’s a gastroenterologist with the Great Falls clinic.

“This knocked me out of the office and the surgery facilities for a while,” he said. “Hopefully I can get back to seeing some patients this next week.”

Molloy’s family and friends were sitting in the general admission area on the third-base side, above the walkway and behind and just to the right of the Voyagers’ dugout.

“You’ve got a 25- to 30-foot net in front of you,” Molloy said. “Earlier in the game there were about three foul balls that came over there. But man, this bat had to fly a long way. Got me right smack in the eyeball.”

He was knocked unconscious briefly. The damage to his right eye included an orbital floor fracture, plus a broken nose. The injury caused extensive bleeding inside the eye and a large laceration.

“It was quite a deal,” he said.

The recent surgery was to relieve pressure in the eye caused by the bleeding. The clots were washed out. He’s scheduled for another surgery to repair structural damage Sept. 14.

The vision is returning. It improved from 20-400 to 20-30 after the first surgery.

Molloy is thankful the accident wasn’t worse. Not only for his sake but for those around him.

“Man, I’ll tell you. There were some people sitting right in front of me with a 6-week-old baby,” he said. “If the bat had come down there it could have been catastrophic.”

Accidents happen to fans at baseball games, usually when line drives rocket into the stands. But to be hit by a flying baseball bat?

“It was a freak accident, a one-in-a-million thing,” said Scott Reasoner, general manager of the Voyagers. “I’m never seen it or even heard of it.”

Response to the situation was swift.

“We have paramedics on site for the weekend games,” Reasoner said. “Our trainer was right there. They were able to respond immediately.

“We’re terribly sorry about the accident. It was a freak accident, but we want to analyze what our procedures were, look at the netting and see if there are any other extra precautions that we can put in place.”

Said Molloy: “You know, I’ve thought about it a lot and I’m not sure how you protect that spot. A lot of people sit down in that little corner there.”

Molloy harbors no ill will or animosity over the accident.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “Unfortunately I was just in the wrong place when that bat came down.”

Reasoner visited Molloy and his wife, Kim, and their son Ciaran, 14, on Friday afternoon. The Molloys, who were attending their first game of the summer that fateful night, are not season-ticket holders. At least not yet.

“We’ll be giving them season tickets for basically as long as they want,” Reasoner said. “We’re going to do the best we can to take care of them. The staff was shook up and so were the players. It was something that definitely affected the whole Voyager family.”

For good reason, Molloy chooses not to look back. He’s thankful to be able to see at all.

“I’m hoping for an all’s-well-that-ends well solution to this one,” he said with a chuckle.