Former Huntly Football Club player (17) left with life threatening injuries after car crash in New York faces long road to recovery
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A HIGHLAND League club has joined fundraising efforts to cover a former player's medical bills after a car crash in the US left him with life threatening injuries.
Ethan Walker (17), who used to play for Huntly Football Club, made the journey to America in pursuit of his goal of becoming a professional footballer.
Originally from Ellon, Ethan secured a spot in Genesee Community College's football team in the state of New York.
Keen to seize the opportunity and realize his dream, Ethan had been going to the gym and doing everything he possibly could to start the season in the best way possible.
However, on September 12, he was hit by a car reportedly going over 45mph while making his way back to his dorm.
Luckily, two of Ethan's teammates were with him at the time and were on hand to call emergency services straight away.
He was then airlifted to hospital and placed in ICU where hospital staff fought to keep him alive.
He had suffered a shattered right scapula, dislocated right knee, tearing to all of his ligaments in his right knee, multiple fractures in the right side of his face, skull fractures as well as swelling and bleeding in the brain.
Ethan's mum, who was at home in Scotland when the incident happened, was notified and within a day she was by her son's side in hospital.
To help the family with medical expenses not covered by insurance, Ethan's teammates at Genesee set up an online fundraiser.
It has since received widespread support raising in excess of $38,000 at the time of writing.
Huntly, Ethan's former team, have shared the fundraiser to show their support with many of the club's players and coaches contributing to it directly.
Gordon Carter, Huntly Football Club Chairman, said: "Obviously, we're a small community club and the under-18s and under-21s, the women's team and the full team are all part of one big family and we're all devastated.
"It's a tragic, tragic accident with serious injuries.
"At the moment we're only interested in his health, but eventually hopefully we'll get him back to his sport and all his dreams he was trying to chase after."
He added: "We were contacted by the chaps in America who were in Genesee college.
"They had started a GoFundMe, so we shared that on our social media platforms and there's been a massive response.
"Both in terms of how our local community have responded in terms of donations but also goodwill messages and just expressions of general support towards him and his family at this very challenging time."
Ethan has since been moved out of the trauma intensive care unit and will now begin what will likely be a long and difficult period of healing and rehabilitation.
However, Huntly will further support their former player with fundraising at their next home game against Clachnacuddin on October 30.
And, while the online fundraiser has a $50,000 target, organisers say they "have no idea how much of a financial burden" the expenses will be on Ethan's family and so the target may be increased if need be.
Donations can be made by visiting https://bit.ly/ethanwalker.
