- Hockey. Matt Petgrave receives social media threats after Adam Johnson's death
- Hockey. Who is Matt Petgrave, the player who accidentally killed Adam Johnson in a freak accident in UK ice hockey?
Adam Johnson's aunt has ed her nephew with a touching message after he was killed due to a carotid artery following with the blades of Matt Petgrave's skates.
The incident happened in the second period when Petgrave flung himself at another player to try to block him, but in the process appeared to lose his balance and his skate came high into the air and made with Johnson's throat.
Johnson initially tried to walk off the injury, despite blood seeping through his jersey, before he later collapsed and died on the way to the hospital. Tributes have poured in for the 29-year-old, who was about to ask his girlfriend to marry him, and his aunt spoke of watching the accident and the kind of person he was.
"We saw it happen. It was horrific," Kari Johnson said to ABC. "It was, it was. I cannot even describe it because nobody should have to live through what we saw.
"The skate cut right through Adam's windpipe, and it cut his carotid artery. And, at one point, they had lost him in the ambulance and they brought him back. And, um, he didn't make it through surgery once they got him to the hospital.
"They just couldn't get the bleeding to stop. He lost way too much blood. It was tough to see and it was tough knowing it was your boy and you know it's bad. You know, my nephew, not my son, but my boy. He's my boy. Just seeing it was traumatic."
His aunt says what kind of person he was
Johnson had been about to ask his girlfriend, Ryan Wolfe, to marry him at the time of his tragic death and said that he only wanted to be good at hockey and wasn't caught up in the hype of stardom.
"We were all really excited because we were really looking forward to their future," Johnson continued. "And he didn't get a chance to ask her and then this happened."
She further said that he was generous to his friends, even when he wasn't earning much money and loved to buy steaks for those around him who didn't have jobs.