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Hank Shipman opened his eyes, looked down at his limp arms and couldn't figure out where the blood was coming from.

"I saw my arms in front of me, just covered in blood, dangling," the Rowland Hall sophomore baseball player said. "I couldn't really move my body. I couldn't see the left side of my body, but I knew it had gotten hammered. It was crushed."

He knew he had been in a car accident – the SUV carrying Shipman, five other Rowmark Ski Academy teammates and one coach was hit by an oncoming Jeep returning from Mount Hood Meadows Ski Resort in Oregon about 5 p.m. April 9.

The blood was coming from Shipman's head — a cut that required 12 staples to close. About 45 minutes later, Shipman and coach Scott Veenis were taken away by ambulance, then airlifted to a local hospital. Four days after Shipman had two hits in Rowland Hall's 8-1 victory against Altamont, his teammates feared he was dead.

"I didn't want to get out of the car. I didn't think Hank was alive," said Zac Merrill, Shipman's teammate in skiing and baseball at Rowland Hall, who broke his wrist in the crash.

Also injured was junior pitcher Jake Graves, who broke his right arm.

"I was visiting in Redlands, California, visiting the college, and was with Pete Shipman the night of the accident," said Rowland Hall senior Jimmy McCarthy, referring to Hank Shipman's older brother. "We got a phone call, Pete's face goes blank and he says, 'They don't know if [Hank] is alive.' They didn't know if he was going to walk again."

Said baseball coach Ben Voegele: "It was brutal. These kids become like little brothers to us and, while you hate to see it happen to anybody, it's especially devastating when it's kids you know well and who are all-around great kids."

Shipman sustained four broken vertebrae, spinal-cord damage, paralysis on his left side, a compound fracture of his left femur and a concussion. Three surgeries later, he's recovering in a second-floor room at Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City.

His room is lined with pictures and get-well messages, including an autographed photo of Utah Olympic skier Ted Ligety. Tucked on a shelf to the right of the television are a handful of game balls from Rowland Hall's first region championship baseball season.

Though Shipman won't be there to see the Winged Lions open the Class 2A playoffs Saturday morning against Grand, his teammates will make sure Shipman is represented. His number 18 will hang in the dugout and will be scrawled on wristbands, as it has the past four weeks. The tight-knit group of teenagers has been playing in honor of Shipman, Merrill and Graves most of the season.

"I think it kind of gave us something to play for," said junior catcher Will Badenhausen, who joined teammates and coaches at the hospital Wednesday to help Shipman celebrate his 16th birthday. "We lost three players, but it gave us something we could get behind and play for."

Shipman has something to work for, too. The paralysis is receding — "Four days ago, I wiggled my finger for the first time. Now I can move my whole hand," he said Friday — and he is determined to best the doctors' timelines for recovery, which has him home in approximately six weeks.

"Everything's coming back much quicker than most people expected," said Shipman, who weighed 160 pounds in early April and has lost 32 since the crash. Shipman also said he has no doubt he will be back skiing and playing baseball next season.

"I'll be back playing baseball for sure," Shipman said. "Next season will be a comeback season, working my way back into it, and then, hopefully, senior year I'll be full strength and be able to compete as I would have anyway."