Crandell was humbled to be able to help the bombing victims who lost limbs.
“The most severe people came our way,†Crandell said. “Because I’m the medical director for the amputee program, we had 15 new amputees, all at the same time. That was a very challenging time professionally. But one of the lessons that we learned is that if someone gets a significant injury — in this case from a bombing, but it can happen from a car accident or some other trauma — that if you don’t stop somebody’s bleeding, they don’t make it to the hospital and they don’t become a rehab patient.â€
Through his volunteer work with USA Hockey, Crandell has been able to travel the globe, which he’s thoroughly enjoyed. He’s been to Finland twice, Czech Republic, Latvia and St. Petersburg, Russia.
His first big USA Hockey event was heading to St. Petersburg with a small group of standing/amputee athletes for the 2000 world championship.Â
Also, Crandell arranged and performed concussion screening “pre-event impact testing†to the U.S. Paralympic Sled Hockey Team and provided injury surveillance monitoring for the Torino Paralympic Winter Games in 2006.
