CASPER — Taking a razor-sharp skate to the neck is the nightmare fear of every hockey player and their families. But one Wyoming youth hockey family is praising a new rule that saved the life of an 11-year-old Casper player when his hockey nightmare happened.
Casper Oilers assistant hockey coach Nick Lein said the sport has been the “passion and dream” for his son Carter for the past six years.
While on the ice playing defense for the Oilers Under 12 team Sunday in a game match against a Park City, Utah, team, Carter’s dream almost came to an end when a skate raked across his neck, as first reported by Oil City News.
Five days later Nick, wife Lauren and Coach Kevin Anderson are all praising a new hockey rule that saved Carter’s life. That’s because this is the first year USA Hockey is mandating every player wear a neck guard.
Carter’s may have saved his life.
“There was a loose puck in front of the net and my son was trying to prevent it from going in the net,” Nick told Cowboy State Daily. “At the same time a couple of kids were trying to score.”
His son, along with other players tripped up. The puck went in the net and his son went down in front of the net on his knees. Carter dropped some gear and skated to the team bench, and at first Lein said he thought Carter was holding his chin.
“And then I just kind of saw the panic on his face and could hear him saying, ‘My neck, my neck,” Nick said. “I’ve grown up playing hockey 30 years.
“You sometimes hear about these crazy stories happening and you just never think it is going to happen. It was definitely terrifying.”
Neck Injury
The fear grew when he had his son remove his hand from his neck and saw a wound caused by a skate. He said what immediately came to mind was professional hockey player Adam Johnson, who lost his life to the same kind of situation.
As a former law enforcement officer, Nick said he knows first aid, and while he saw a significant cut he didn’t see blood spewing out as if an artery had been hit.
Meanwhile, Lauren was in the stands and saw her son go to the bench.
She started up from her seat to walk to the lobby and back to where Carter was when she saw her husband look at Carter’s neck and put his hands in the air calling out for a medic or doctor in the arena.
“Pandemonium just kind of rang out. The buzzer sounded and I started running,” she said. “I called to anybody to call 911.”
A nurse who is a parent of another hockey player joined her in running to the bench, and coach Kevin Anderson was already clearing his players away from the scene.
Lauren said someone grabbed her hand and took her up to Carter, and she began to talk to him trying to keep him calm.
“He’s crying. He’s staying very calm and very still, but he is crying,” she said. “He kept saying, ‘I am so scared, I’m so scared.’”
Lauren said she took his hand and got in his face and kept reassuring him that he would be OK.
Carter Lein in his hockey gear, including mandated neck guard, which likely saved his life Sunday when a skate raked across his neck. (Courtesy Nick and Lauren Lein) 
Carter Lein, 11, was cut twice by a hockey skate in the neck during a game. It took eight stitches to close, but could have been tragic if he hadn't been wearing a neck guard. (Courtesy Nick and Lauren Lein) 
Carter Lein, 11, was cut twice by a hockey skate in the neck during a game. It took eight stitches to close, but could have been tragic if he hadn't been wearing a neck guard. (Courtesy Nick and Lauren Lein) 
A screenshot of a video of Sunday’s game before the incident that led to Carter Lein’s injury. (Courtesy Lauren Lein)
Sweatshirt Pressure
Meanwhile, the team goalie’s father had taken off his sweatshirt to apply pressure to Carter’s neck. When an ambulance arrived with EMTs, Nick accompanied his son to the hospital with Lauren in the vehicle.
In the lobby of the arena, players and parents were crying as they wheeled the young athlete out, Lauren said.
“I was just walking by the stretcher with him and everyone was saying, ‘What do you need, what do you need?’ I just said I would keep them all updated,” she said.
At the Banner Health Medical Center Emergency Room, Carter found a familiar face.
Dr. Eugene Duquette is the grandfather of one Carter’s teammates and instead of being at the game was working the weekend shift.
By the time Carter arrived, the doctor’s wife had called from the arena to let him know what was happening.
“We were so incredibly blessed,” Lauren said. “Knowing that it was Dr. Duquette, someone that Carter knew and trusted and had been with us the entire season, we are good friends with his family.”
She said she could she her son show relief when he saw the doctor, who calmed him and told him that if he wanted to see him “there are other ways to do that.”
Lauren said the entire staff was great.
Life-Saving Rule
Carter received eight stitches to close the wound left by the skate, and Nick said that there were actually two cuts on his neck. A CT scan showed the cut was an inch away from his artery.
The mandated neck guard for all players this year made the difference.Without it, the skate to Carter’s neck could’ve been tragic.
“It’s just every hockey parent’s worst nightmare,” Nick said. “I grew up playing, and I knew those things could happen, but it was never a fear of mine. And you know, when we played we didn’t wear neck guards.”
Anderson, the Under 12 team’s coach, said that when the incident happened, he just tried to get the other players away from the bench.
The game took a 30-minute pause and he and the remaining coaches spent time talking with the kids before the game resumed, where his team lost, 3-2.
“It was definitely traumatic for them,” Anderson said, adding that he has been with all the players on the team since they were 6-year-olds.
When the neck guard rule was implemented this year, Anderson said coaches ensured that each of the players had a neck guard, mouth guard and other safety gear in place before they took to the ice.
As with the Leins, he said everyone was aware of the death of the player who was cut in the neck by a skate.
“We don’t let them out of the locker room without them on,” he said.
Lauren said following the incident her son spent a few days at home. She characterizes him as “resilient,” but in the first few days after the accident he also was “scared,” “shaken” and “very sad that he might not want to play hockey again.”
He has returned to school and “feels like a normal kid again,” she said.
She said it’s a “blessing” that the incident happened at the end of the season where he does not have to play or worry about hockey, or know that his teammates are playing a game and he’s not.
Any decision on his hockey future will be up to him.
Nick agrees.
“Hockey has been my life since I was 3 or 4 years old,” Nick said. “And for me, if he decides he doesn’t want to play anymore, then he doesn’t,and my wife and I will completely support that decision. It’s been his passion, his dream and I think over time, he’ll want to play again. … I won’t be upset either way.”
Both parents are grateful for the neck guard rule.
“Looking back on it now, it was very, very surreal,” Lauren said. “I have more emotion about now because I am not in survival mode. I can actually feel what had happened, and I find zero words to describe it.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
