It's been a more than a year since a bus carrying members of the Bluffton University baseball team crashed along I-75 in Atlanta, killing five players, the driver and his wife.

But the players and coaches who were once patients at Grady and Piedmont hospitals are not far from the minds of hospital staff.

File photo (ENLARGE)

Piedmont Hospital registered nurse Jacqueline Rose cared for Bluffton University coach James Grandey, who suffered extensive facial injuries in the bus crash.

Dr. Jeffrey Salomone, who was the trauma surgeon on call at Grady the day of the accident, went to Florida last month to see the team play. He also attended a game last April in Ohio.

"They're a phenomenal group of young men," Salomone said. "It just seemed like the right thing to do to go watch one of their games last year. That brought me closer to several team members and their families."

The Bluffton team was headed to a tournament in Florida on March 2, 2007, when it is believed that the driver mistook the HOV exit at Northside Drive for a southbound through lane.

Of the 29 passengers admitted to hospitals, all but four players and coach James Grandey were discharged shortly afterward.

Cathy Churbock, who manages the nurses in the trauma intensive care unit at Grady Memorial Hospital, was working on the day of the crash.

"The sickest of the kids came to our unit," Churbock said. "Over the course of time, we developed a relationship with the families. A lot of the staff got attached to them."

In particular, she grew close to player Tim Berta, who suffered extensive injuries and remained at Grady through April.

Churbock accompanied Berta back to Toledo, Ohio, last April for the next step in his rehabilitation at the University of Toledo Medical Center. He was released in June and is living at home while going to therapy.

"It was hard saying goodbye to him and his family, but we did," Churbock said. "It was the best thing for the patient to send him on to the rehab center. But it was hard on the nurses [at Grady], too. It didn't seem the same when they left."

Churbock still gets periodic e-mails from Berta's mother with updates on his progress, and the nurse shares the information with others, such as Salomone, who knew Berta during his stay at Grady.

Grandey stayed at Piedmont Hospital through mid-March after suffering extensive facial injuries and a dislocated ankle.

Jacqueline Rose was Grandey's nurse after his transfer out of the intensive care unit. She keeps in touch with Grandey through e-mails and saw him in August, when he returned to Piedmont with Bluffton University President Jim Harder to thank the hospital staff for their efforts.

"[Grandey] says there are times when it is still difficult — his muscles are stiff and he limps — but, after stretching, he perseveres," Rose said.

Piedmont also treated players Chris Bauman and A.J. Ranthum, who has also written to the staff since last year.

Churbock said nurses tend to develop bonds with victims of mass casualties, such as the bus crash.

It's just "the magnitude of that and the adrenaline of the accident," she said, "and the fact that these were young kids doing what they love to do."

— This article was reprinted from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.