Teenage Girl With Brain Tumor Gets Concussed By Drunk San Jose Sharks Fan

Maggie Herger is a 16 year old Vancouver Canucks fan with a brain tumor who recently had a run in with the fine sports fans of California. Maggie was assaulted and battered by a drunken female San Jose fan while at a Canucks-Sharks game at the "Shark Tank" with her sister Maya, who gave her the tickets as a Christmas gift. She was taken away by paramedics and later informed by doctors that she suffered a concussion. Despite being confined to her bed with nausea, a spinning head and neck pain, her family was relieved to hear that the tumor—now much smaller and benign following surgery four years ago—was not affected, though it remains close to an artery.

According to Maggie, the incident was the culmination of a game-long pattern of behavior from the woman who continually bumped into and yelled obscenities at the sisters. The girls were well aware of the "protocol" of visiting fans and indicated they tried to follow some advice from their mom who told them to be "very sportsmanlike, because it's Sharks territory." Unfortunately, things would only get uglier after the hometown Sharks scored a goal.

The girls said they did just that, keeping to themselves as they rooted for the Canucks and took smiling pictures that appeared destined for a happy digital photo album. But one intoxicated woman wearing a Sharks jersey, who appeared to be in her 40s, kept bumping into the teens and yelling curses at them, the two sisters said. "'I was just really surprised,'' Maggie said. "I didn't think people acted like that.'"

Then, as the fans jumped up to celebrate a second period Sharks goal, the sisters said, the woman behind them brought down both her hands and smacked Maggie in the back of her head "really hard," forcing Maggie to fall forward and leaving her dazed.

Her sister then rushed to an usher. Maya said she heard the woman tell the usher "she's a Canucks fan," but that she "didn't mean to" hurt her.

Later, while being loaded into an ambulance, another stand-up citizen and concerned Sharks fan told her to "suck it up." Maggie says her spirits were uplifted, though, when the paramedic treating her shared some pictures of a friend with whom they both had something in common. The man was also a paramedic and he was attacked by fans at a sporting event. Any guesses?

Beating up paramedics and 16 year old girls? Move over, Philadelphia.

h/t disco choo Teenage girl who had brain surgery says she was attacked by Sharks fan at HP Pavilion [San Jose Mercury News]