Teen In Softball Van Crash 'Thought She Was Going To Die'

FORT COLLINS, Colo. (CBS4) - A teen passenger on a van that crashed in Kanses en route to Colorado says she and members of her softball team went through a horrifying ordeal.

Kate Harris is a high school junior and a member of the Fort Collins-based Triple Crown Stars. She told CBS4 what it was like being in the van in an interview in her Fort Collins home on Monday.

Officials with the Kansas Highway Patrol said the van was going about 70 mph when a tire blew out on Interstate 70 near Colby, Kan. Soon after that the van rolled off the road.

Harris said the team was returning from a tournament in Wichita in two different vans and that she woke up suddenly when the van she was in began shaking.

"And then it just started to skid, and then if felt like we were turning forever," said Harris, who said she thought she was going to die at that point.

When Harris recovered her senses she says the crash scene around her didn't seem real. The van had landed on its roof. One teammate broke her vertebrate and another broke her collarbone. Another girl had a large cut on her face that required 250 stitches.

"She was just drenched in blood and I thought she was dead at first," Harris said. "We just all kind of all started bawling and realizing what just happened and what could have happened."

Harris said the team's other van stopped and those passengers -- plus motorists from 20 other cars passing by -- ran over to help. One person who stopped turned out to be an off-duty EMT.

Team officials thinks the cargo rack on top of the van acted as a roll bar and kept the crash from being even more serious.

Two coaches and five players were hospitalized, but no one suffered life threatening injuries.

"It is a miracle. It's 100 percent a miracle," Harris said.

Harris said she and the teammates around her in the van weren't wearing seat belts.

The Triple Crown Stars are a newly formed softball team whose players are mostly between 16 and 18 years old.