Two men with ties to Southern Minnesota are among the dead and injured from Wednesday's bridge collapse. The Winona Daily News reports that WSU grad Pat Holmes, Moundsview, drowned after his vehicle plunged into the Mississippi River.
Holmes had pitched for the WSU Warriors baseball team in the early 1990s, according to the WDN:
Holmes . . . graduated from WSU in 1994 with a degree in exercise science. He was a Northern Sun League all-conference pitcher in 1994.
He worked as an exercise therapist at Northwestern Health Science University in Bloomington, Minn., according to Winona State’s alumni office.
Former Warriors baseball coach Gary Grob remembered Holmes as a hard-working, conscientious team player.
Holmes pitched the last game of the 1992 season in which the Warriors struggled but made it to the national tournament. Seeded eighth out of eight teams, they finished third after a loss to perennial powerhouse Lewis and Clark State College.
Grob said that was one of his favorite teams he coached. “Pat was very definitely part of that ball club,” he said.
Tommy Tusa, who was formerly married to Holmes’ sister, said Holmes is survived by his wife, Jennifer, and two children.
When his wife, Jennifer, heard about the bridge’s collapse from a golf course, she knew her husband’s route would have put him there about that time. So she went home to wait. Pat didn’t believe in cell phones, she said.
At 11:30 p.m., when authorities contacted her, she knew it would be bad news.
Holmes, who played amateur baseball in St. Paul for many years, had two children, ages 4 and 6. He coached his son’s baseball and soccer teams and loved to fish, camp and wrestle around with the kids.
Jennifer Holmes said Thursday she was learning that her husband was liked “by many, many people.”
The Holmeses, married for a dozen years, had been a couple far longer. As high school sweethearts, they knew early on that they would spend their lives together, Jennifer Holmes said.
Patrick Holmes was on the last northbound portion that fell. His car crashed onto the riverbank below. He died immediately of what the medical examiner described as “mechanical and positional asphyxia.”
Now, Jennifer Holmes said, her main concern is the rest of her family. “I’m just worried about my kids,” she said.
We will let readers know how they can help Holmes' family when specific information becomes available.
The Journal reports that Garrett Ebling is in critical condition in HCMC
A New Ulm native, Garrett Ebling, is one of the people injured in the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis on Wednesday.
Ebling, 32, is the son of Joyce Resoft, a special education teacher at Washington Elementary School. He is in critical but stable condition at Hennepin County Medical Center, where he was taken after his car, a red Ford Focus, plunged into the Mississippi River when the bridge collapsed.
Ebling suffered intestinal injuries, along with a broken leg and fractures to the bones in his face, according to Diane Anderson, a friend of his mother’s who accompanied Resoft to HCMC on Thursday. . . ..
. . . “He had just gotten engaged on Sunday,” said Anderson, “so his fiance has been by his side here in the hospital.”
Anderson said Ebling was working in the Washington, D.C. area when the September 11 attack happened, and later when the Virginia sniper attacks were going on. “His mother worried about him all through that, and now he’s back in Minnesota and this happens.”
“Joyce’s main message to his friends right now is to keep him in your prayers,” said Anderson.
Ebling is expected to go through months of recuperation and therapy, said Anderson. If anyone would like to make a donation, a benefit fund has been established at Frandsen Bank & Trust in New Ulm.
Update: Ebling was a sports blogger when he lived in the Washington DC area. His work on the east coast is reported in a local paper:
Before his three-year stint [as managing editor] at the Stafford Sun, Ebling worked as a night editor at the Potomac News and a copy editor at the Washington Times.
In December 2005, he moved from Alexandria to Faribault, Minn., where he was the managing editor of the Faribault Daily News. He currently lives in another part of the state and works for Great Clips International.
In an e-mail, Tracy Bell, managing editor of the Stafford Sun, said it's an "extremely shocking and upsetting situation."
Ebling hired her as a reporter for the Stafford Sun after they worked together at the Potomac News, she wrote.
"Garrett is an amazing, kind person with many friends who love him. Everyone here at the Sun and at the Potomac News & Manassas Journal Messenger are praying for him to recover."
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