It’s hard to realize thirty-five years have passed. The news that Pelle Lindbergh, the 26-year-old goalie for the
Philadelphia Flyers, had perished in a car crash in New Jersey shook the sports world on November 11, 1985.
After leading the Flyers to the Stanley Cup Finals and winning the Vezina Trophy as the league’s finest goalie,
Lindbergh was a rising star in the National Hockey League. Lindbergh was driving his Porsche at a “high rate of
speed” when he left a Flyers team party at the team’s practice facility in Voorhees early on November 10, according to
authorities.
His spinal cord and brain stem were injured after he crashed his sports vehicle into a wall in front of Somerdale
Elementary School due to poor cornering. When emergency responders came, Lindbergh had stopped breathing but
was still breathing and had a pulse. Shortly after, though, he experienced cardiac arrest; he did not pass away at the
site and was taken to the hospital. Although it was concluded that he was brain dead, he was maintained on life
support until his relatives arrived from Sweden later that day to bid him farewell and gave the go-ahead to remove
life support after his organs were removed for donation.
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