Experts estimate that one in 3.4 million people worldwide experience a fatal plane crash. But how many are involved in—and survive—two such crashes? Seemingly no data exists, yet Michigan Wolverines basketball player Austin Hatch fits that description. He now lives as an example of perseverance and gratitude to us all.
“It’s unbelievable to be here,” Hatch said recently in an espn feature. “After all I’ve been through, to finally be able to make it to Michigan and put on that jersey really is a dream come true.”
“Yes, nine in 10 … come to the place where they appear to be totally defeated!” wrote the late educator Herbert W. Armstrong in The Seven Laws of Success. “They give up and quit, when just a little more determined hanging on, just a little more faith and perseverance—just a little more stick-to-it-iveness would have turned apparent certain failure into glorious success.”
Rewind to Sept. 1, 2003. Austin and his family—father Stephen, mother Julie, 5-year-old brother Ian, and 11-year-old sister Lindsay—boarded a private plane outside the family cabin by Michigan’s Walloon Lake to fly back to their home in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Two hours into the flight, some of the flight panel’s lights went out, and the engine stopped working. The plane struck a utility pole in Uniondale, Indiana, killing Austin’s mother and two siblings. His father, a doctor specializing in pain management and working specifically with cancer patients and burn victims, suffered his own severe burns while throwing Austin out of the cockpit and trying in vain to save the others. A faulty plane had shattered Austin’s family in an instant.
The rebuilding process began immediately. Young Austin continued attending school and playing basketball, striving to follow his father’s admonition to be an uncommon man. He and his father became inseparable best friends; to this day, Austin calls his father motm: Man of the Millennium.
Austin’s father married Kimberly Neal, a single mother of three—Maria, Brittnee, and an Austin of her own—two years after the accident. The parents adopted each other’s children, further uniting the new family.
Meanwhile, Austin grew into an accomplished basketball player. After witnessing Austin’s 30-point, 16-rebound effort in February 2011 for Canterbury School in Fort Wayne, the Michigan Wolverines head coach John Beilein offered the 16-year-old a scholarship on June 15.
It was time to celebrate. Austin had been a fan of the maize and blue all his life, and soon he would fulfill his dream to play basketball for the school. On June 24, Austin and his parents boarded a flight to their Michigan cabin.
Partway through the trip, inclement weather struck, forcing Austin’s father to land on a small airstrip in Charlevoix, Michigan. Before he could circle around to the proper end of the strip, the plane crashed. Austin’s dad and his step-mom were killed on impact.
Austin lived, but one couldn’t exactly call his condition “life.” His litany of injuries included two broken collarbones, rib fractures, holes in both lungs, a fractured sternum, a fractured hip, and—worst of all—a massive brain injury. Austin didn’t know his family’s fate until six weeks after the accident because doctors kept him in a medically induced coma.
“He survived for this?” Austin’s sister, Maria Bowersock, recalls saying once she heard the bad news. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Austin’s injuries severely inhibited his cognitive skills, reflexes and ability to communicate. The average person would have been happy to just regain brain activity, but Austin is not the average person. He had to relearn how to talk and walk—and had to play basketball again.
Four months after suffering a brain injury from which 90 percent of victims never regain consciousness, Austin had recaptured the ability to walk. He had lost more than 50 pounds and couldn’t physically raise a basketball over his head, but he could walk—slowly and shakily, with the help of physical therapists. Once a straight-A student, academics were now a struggle. He studied diligently but couldn’t retain information like he used to.
Despite the difficulties, Austin remained constantly grateful. “He said to me: ‘Coach, the way I look at it, I’ve been so blessed through life,’” recalled Beilein, the Michigan coach. “’I’ve only had two really bad days in my life.’”
Austin resumed schooling at Canterbury in spring 2012, auditing classes at first. He then took classes for credit in the fall. In August 2013, he moved to Pasadena, California, to live with his uncle and attend Loyola High School. Every morning at 5, he met with now-New York Knicks assistant coach Rasheed Hazzard—who had previously worked out Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant—at the school gym for a couple hours of grueling drills before class.
“He literally asked me, ‘Do you want to be a part of a miracle?’” Hazzard said. “He had this spirit about him that he could do anything. He really believed it, and I believed in him.”
Through it all, Austin stayed motivated by the Michigan athletic scholarship that still awaited him, though he had lost much of his basketball skill.
“People keep thanking us for showing great appreciation for honoring this scholarship,” Beilein said. “I said, ‘Wait a minute—we’re the ones getting the blessing here.’”
More than two years of hard work finally paid off on Jan. 8, 2014. Loyola seized a big lead in its first game of the season, and Austin—no longer a star player because of his slowed reflexes—got a chance to play. He hit a 3-pointer on his first shot, nearly causing the gym to collapse under the pressure of jubilant screams from the frenzied fan base.
“Till the day that we die,” Loyola coach Jamal Adams said, “I will never doubt anything with Austin Hatch.”
Austin built on that momentum by converting a free throw attempt for Michigan in a Dec. 22, 2014, game against Coppin State.
“He’s one of the hardest-working kids I’ve ever met,” teammate Zak Irvin said. “It’s just nice to see that pay off in front of everyone.”
Austin is the last remnant of life in his immediate family. He has already suffered several lifetimes of tragedy in his 20 years. His athletic prowess and mental acuity vanished in the second crash. Yet none of this has stopped him from constantly pushing forward.
May we strive to endure the trials that shape us into beings of God’s own character, all the while expressing gratitude for them like the hero of this story: Austin Hatch.