A 25-year-old man is in serious condition at a Baltimore hospital after he was punched in the head and sent him over the railing to a concrete slab five feet beneath him during a Baltimore Orioles-New York Yankees baseball game Wednesday night, the Baltimore Sun reported Friday.
Matt Fortese is in serious condition at Maryland Shock Trauma Center after the fall.
He drove 75 miles from Hagerstown, Md., to Camden Yards for a second date with Taylor Queen, who drove three hours from Virginia.
Fortese was wearing a Yankees cap, which led two unruly Orioles fans, 22-year-old Gregory Fleischman of Jarretsville, Md., and 21-year-old Michael Bell of Annapolis, Md., to start heckling the couple. The two men were sitting in a section above the couple.
After about an hour, according to the Sun report, Queen, 21, told police that one of the men threw a beer that hit the couple. Fortese, she said, when to confront the men.
An argument ensued, and Fleischman punched Fortese in the side of the head, the force of which caused him to tumble over the railing. Deadspin.com named Fleischman as the one who hit Fortese
Fleischman was charged with first-degree assault and he and Bell both were charged with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct. Both were released on $50,000 bond Friday, the Sun reported.
"It's very serious," Jimmy Fortese, 30, said of his brother's injury to the Sun. "They're not saying he's out of the woods yet. They tell us we have to wait and see."
Nathan Steelman, an off-duty state trooper and childhood friend of his from Hagerstown who hadn't seen each other in years but had talked for a few minutes before the incident, rushed to Fortese's aid.
Steelman said Fortese had gone as long as 45 seconds without breathing and began to apply basic emergency medical training he learned while deployed as a soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Sun reported that he stuck his finger in Fortese's mouth to remove a wad of chewing tobacco.
The tobacco, Steelman said, was blocking Fortese's air passage, and Fortese took a breath shortly thereafter.
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