Angels Prospect Recalls Harrowing Team Van Crash

J.P. Hoornstra | Sep 15, 2024

MLB Los Angeles Angels starter Hayden Seig / Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

When a van carrying a group of Angels minor league players crashed in Aug. 2021, the incident was easy to overlook. It was not a crash on the same order of magnitude as the 1992 Angels team bus crash that injured several coaches, including manager Buck Rodgers. In fact, every player walked off the van with only superficial injuries — except one.

Three years and one month later, the only player who was seriously hurt in the crash, Hayden Seig, was promoted to Triple-A Salt Lake. He allowed five hits, one walk, and four runs in his debut outing Wednesday.

Congratulations to a pair of Trash Pandas pitchers, Hayden Seig and John O'Reilly, on their promotions to the Triple-A @SaltLakeBees! pic.twitter.com/qoqZhDUWAi

— Rocket City Trash Pandas (@trashpandas) September 10, 2024

He knows he’s fortunate to still be playing.

“I thought my career might be over again,” Seig said.

The van was driving Seig and his teammates in Arizona, home to the Angels’ extended spring training complex, when it was cut off by a car and collided into the back of a truck. Seig was riding in the front passenger seat, and most vulnerable to the impact on the front-right side of the van. It sounds cliché, but his life really did flash before his eyes.

“The firefighters and ambulance had to cut me out,” he recalled. “The dashboard basically pinned my leg. I’m like, ‘my knee is not supposed to be in that place.’ 

“Your mind’s racing sitting in that van: ‘I’m probably going to lose my leg.’ ”

Seig didn’t lose the leg, but his femur was broken. Doctors told him it was a “clean break,” with a relatively straightforward surgery and rehab process. A rod would be inserted into the bone, and Seig would need a walker to get around for the next three weeks. 

Compounding the psychological toll, Seig had only signed with the Angels days earlier, when his contract was purchased from the independent Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks on Aug. 3.

“I didn’t know anybody,” he said. “It was within the first couple days. (Angels farm director) Joey Prebynski, the first time I met him was in a hospital.”

Seig commended Prebynski and the Angels for how they handled the aftermath of the crash. They flew his family out from Pennsylvania and put them up in a local hotel room, as his mother, father and fiancée came to visit in the weeks that followed.

After Seig ditched the walker for crutches, he was eventually walking on his own three months after the accident. By Jan. 2022, he was cleared to pitch off a mound. He broke camp with the Inland Empire 66ers in March 2022 and was pitching in games the next month.

Seig hit some rough patches along the way — like a 6.34 ERA in his first season at High-A Tri-City — but the Angels stuck with him.

“My (2022) numbers in pro ball were not a year most free agents make it through,” he said. “I had a rough year in High-A. A lot of free agents don’t make it and get released the next spring. The Angels stuck with me through it.”