ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – Danijel Blagojevic was on everyone’s mind as his teammates played without him Friday.
The 19-year-old tennis player at Missouri Baptist University was injured in a head-on collision on Interstate 270 last week.
“It was hard to just put it to the side, especially for me and a couple of others, but I mean, we tried our best,” Cristian Padilla, Blagojevic’s friend, said.
He says Blagojevic is goofy, gets along with everyone, and his coach added that he is a great tennis player.
“He’s a big guy. He’s six foot eight and super strong. I joke about him; he could be a three-sport athlete at Missouri Baptist,” Head Tennis Coach at MBU Scott Goodyear said.
On the morning of Feb. 5, Blagojevic’s sister called just moments after hearing about a deadly crash on Interstate 55.
“It was actually Danijel on the phone. I was very surprised. He said, ‘Hey, I was in this bad accident. I was hit really hard, and I’m not going to be at practice.’ So he had the consciousness enough to call the coach and let him know he won’t be at practice,” Goodyear said.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol is still investigating the deadly crash that killed the wrong-way driver. Blagojevic suffered from internal bleeding, multiple broken ribs, a fractured jaw, a fractured hip, and more.
Padilla is constantly checking in and visiting Blagojevic at the hospital, and the team hopes to have him on the sidelines supporting his teammates again.
“He looks so much better than he did on the first day, and he’s starting to recover. So he’s always in the back of my mind, but it definitely helps knowing that he’s okay,” he said. “We just want him to focus on resting and recovering one hundred percent because he has a lot of injuries going on. I think he’s come to grips with that, and he’s just ready to support and be on the sideline with us.”
To donate to Danijel’s GoFundMe, click here.