Pelle Lindbergh Car Accident: In loving memory of Swedish professional ice hockey goaltender Pelle Lindbergh.
Lindbergh played five seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers in the National Hockey League (NHL). He was the first European-born goaltender to be drafted in the NHL Entry Draft and the first to achieve success in North America.
Lindbergh died at age 26 in a single-car accident five months after leading the Flyers to the 1985 Stanley Cup Finals and winning the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s top goaltender.
On Sunday, November 10, 1985, early in the morning, Lindbergh lost control of his modified Porsche 930 Turbo and crashed into a wall in front of an elementary school in Somerdale, New Jersey, badly injuring himself and seriously hurting both of his passengers. Even though he was given the all-clear for brain death a few hours later, he was kept on life support up until his father’s arrival from Sweden late the following day, when his parents swiftly gave the go-ahead to turn off the machine. After a five-hour procedure to remove his heart and other organs for transplant, he passed away on Monday, November 11.
He had just left a team party at the Coliseum, once the Flyers’ practice facility in Voorhees Township, New Jersey, when the incident occurred. At the time of the collision, he had a blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.24, which was significantly higher than the 0.10 legal limit in New Jersey at the time.
For the 1986 NHL All-Star Game, Lindbergh received the most fan votes. It would be the first occasion in a significant North American team sport that a player was selected posthumously for an all-star squad. The only other occasion was when Sean Taylor was chosen for the Pro Bowl in 2008. Although the Flyers never formally retired Lindbergh’s number 31, no Flyer has donning it since his passing. A cemetery in southern Stockholm called Skogskyrkogrden is where Lindbergh is interred.
When it was built in 1986, Pelle Circle, a residential street in Far Northeast Philadelphia, was given his name.