Over the weekend, the Montana State University men's lacrosse team bus suffered an engine failure and caught fire two hours outside of Bozeman.
The fire rapidly spread destroying the bus.
Players originally assumed the bus had a flat tire before realizing the severity and say from the moment the team exited the bus no more than 10 minutes went by before the buss was fully engulfed in flames.
“We had just left the gas station and a couple miles further down the road someone said ‘there is smoke coming out of the bathroom,” said president of the team Bubba Ullman. “We pulled over and evacuated the bus then opened up the engine bay where we saw flames. That’s when I realized it was serious.”
“Our driver opened up the backside to see what was on fire and it was just a little flame, so he put it out with a fire extinguisher,” said the team’s goalie Ethan Zwickey. “I ended up going back on to grab a pair of sweatpants and my coach said ‘get off the bus there's a fire in the bathroom’ so it all moved pretty quickly. It probably took around 10 minutes before the bus was up in flames.”No one was hurt during the fire, but many players lost personal items such as gear, laptops and class notebooks.
Although nobody was hurt during the incident many players lost personal items such as gear as well as laptops and class notebooks.
Despite the incident, the team still looks to qualify for the national tournament in RoundRock, Texas, May 9-14.
You can send donations to the team that will go toward buying new gear and school supplies via a GoFundMe here.