Yankees fan beaten unconscious at Orioles game [View all]

[alp227]

If you thought the Bryan Stow case was bad enough, this is even MORE unbelievable:

Matt Fortese came 75 miles from Hagerstown to meet Taylor Queen at Camden Yards. She drove more than three hours from Virginia. Their second date was going well, Queen said, until an hour of taunting from two fans boiled over into an altercation that left Fortese fighting for his life.

Fortese, a lifelong Yankees fan who wore his team's cap to Wednesday's game, suffered severe head trauma and a skull fracture. He was listed in serious condition at Maryland Shock Trauma Center Saturday. Police said they had arrested two men in the incident.

At the hospital, Fortese's family and Queen recounted the ordeal — and a chance encounter with a childhood friend who they said helped save the 25-year-old man's life.

By the fifth or sixth inning of the matchup with the Washington Nationals, the couple had endured about an hour of heckling, mostly about Fortese's hat, from two men sitting a section above them, said Queen, 21. Then one of the men threw a beer that hit the couple, according to police, and when Fortese approached the men and began arguing with them, one punched him in the head.

The blow sent Fortese over a railing and onto the concrete about five feet below.

Two men — Gregory Fleischman, 22, of Jarrettsville, and Michael Bell, 21, of Annapolis — were charged in the attack.

Police said Fleischman punched Fortese.

But luckily Fortese ran into an old friend at the game, and that friend saved Fortese's life:

Nathan Steelman, an off-duty state trooper and a childhood friend of Fortese's from Hagerstown, was standing nearby in the left field seats. Steelman and Fortese hadn't seen each other in years but had run into one another at the game and had spoken for about five minutes to catch up.

"You just heard it," Steelman, 26, said Friday of the commotion. "I rushed over, and I realized it was Matt. He wasn't breathing. He was unconscious. Blood was coming from his nose."

He said Fortese had gone as long as 45 seconds without breathing. Steelman, relying on basic emergency medical training he received as a soldier deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, stuck his finger in Fortese's mouth and removed a wad of chewing tobacco that had blocked his airway. Fortese drew a breath.

Sadly this is what people are willing to do to others over rival sports teams.