The Minnesota physician who served as the team doctor for the USA’s “Miracle on Ice” Olympic victory was mugged while visiting his wife’s grave, FOX 9 reports.
93-year-old George Nagobads had to have 18 stitches on his head after he was attacked at the Crystal Lake Cemetery in North Minneapolis Sunday afternoon. A witness told the TV station that a someone came up behind Nagobads, hit him on the head and stole his wallet, before fleeing on a bike.
Nagobads sustained “serious injuries” in the incident, the Star Tribune reports, but he was able to drive himself to hospital.
“I’m so lucky. … I used that little trick and threw the wallet to get to my car,” he told the newspaper, before adding: “I was running … really fast. I was surprised how I could run like this.”
Nagobads, known as the “Hockey Doc” was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 2010, the Minnesota Daily reports.
He spent 34 years as the Gophers’ team physician from 1958 to 1992, as well as being the team doctor for five U.S. Olympic teams – including during the epic Miracle on Ice victory over the Russians at Lake Placed in 1980 – and the Minnesota North Stars.
Now living in Edina, he was born in Latvia and trained in Germany before moving to the United States in 1952, where he began his surgical residency at the University of Minnesota, according to the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame website.
