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Posted 8:39 PM, Oct 06, 2025

BILLINGS — The Montana State University Billings community is rallying around its cross country team this week after a serious van crash in Washington state left six athletes injured.

Watch the story below:

According to Dan Carter, the university’s director of communications and marketing, the accident happened Friday night outside Dusty, Wash., on a two-lane highway. Three vans and one SUV were traveling together with 20 members, including both the men's and women's teams and the coaching staff, to a meet at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash. Carter said one of the vans veered off the road with a narrow shoulder and no rumble strip, and hit a paved driveway area.

The van held six athletes, with all sustaining injuries, including concussions. Two were airlifted due to the severity of their injuries. All but one have returned home as of Monday morning, according to Carter, as one athlete is receiving further care at a Spokane-area hospital.

The crash left those back on campus shaken, especially the tight-knit sports community. Many of the student-athletes heard about the crash from their coaches.

“I was kind of just shocked. I didn't really honestly believe it at first,” said junior Layla Baumann, a player on the MSU Billings women’s basketball team. “I was glad to hear that everyone was still doing okay for the most part and just that we didn't have any huge losses or anything because I think that would have just been super detrimental to our program.”

Bauman said basketball is one of the few sports that travel mainly by plane, but due to smaller numbers, teams travel long distances by van, usually driven by coaches.

Others worried about the team's travel.

“It's wild to think that these teams are so small that you're taking vans to go to your meets that are in Walla Walla, Washington,” said sophomore Aidan Johnson, a cheerleader and track and field athlete.

After hearing about the accident, Johnson was worried about his own friend who runs on the team.

“I didn't know exactly if he had gotten injured or who had gotten injured. I just kind of found out today about that, and I'm just so glad everyone is OK,” said Johnson. “All I remember is just thinking, man, that really could be anyone on any day, and you just have to put prayers up for all the people who were hospitalized and honestly everybody on the entire team.”

Carter told MTN that the invitational meet scheduled for Friday at Amend Park will still go on, and MSUB will compete with a limited roster.

School officials said they are focusing on the athletes' recovery moving forward. For the athletes, they hope the team can continue to heal after a difficult and traumatic time.

“I just want the cross-country team to know that we'll be keeping them in our prayers and hope that everything just settles out well for them,” said Baumann.

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Billings, Montana AP —

A cloud of smoke from two pounds of methamphetamine seized by the FBI and incinerated inside a Montana animal shelter sent its workers to the hospital, city officials in Billings said.

The smoke started to fill the building during a drug burn on Wednesday, apparently because of negative pressure that sucked it back inside, Billings Assistant City Administrator Kevin Iffland said Friday. A fan was supposed to be on hand in such situations to reverse the pressure so smoke would flow out of the building, but Iffland said it wasn’t readily available.

The incinerator is used primarily to burn carcasses of animals euthanized or collected by the city’s animal control division. But every couple of months local law enforcement or FBI agents use it to burn seized narcotics, Iffland said.

Fourteen workers from the nonprofit Yellowstone Valley Animal Shelter evacuated and went to the hospital. The shelter’s 75 dogs and cats were relocated or put into foster homes, said Iffland and shelter director Triniti Halverson.

The shelter shares space with Billings’ animal control division. When smoke started filling parts of the building, Halverson assumed it was from burning carcasses because she said they had never known about the drug burns.

Halverson said she had a very intense headache and sore throat, and others had dizziness, sweating and coughing.

“Not a party,” she said.

The workers found out it was methamphetamine smoke through a call from a city official while they were the hospital, Halverson said. Most of the staff spent several hours in an oxygen chamber for treatment.

Symptoms have lingered for some workers, Halverson said.

They also were closely monitoring four litters of kittens that got more heavily exposed because they were in a closed room with lots of smoke, she said.

The FBI routinely uses outside facilities to conduct controlled drug evidence burns, agency spokesperson Sandra Barker said. She referred further questions to Billings officials.

A city animal control supervisor who was present for Wednesday’s burn declined to go the hospital, Iffland said. The FBI agents were told to go to the hospital by their supervisor.

The incinerator is meant to operate at a certain temperature so it doesn’t emit toxins. Iffland said officials were trying to determine if it was at the appropriate temperature Wednesday.

The shelter will remain closed until it can be tested for contamination. Shelter workers were tested for potential exposure, and Iffland said he did not know the results.

Billings resident Jay Ettlemen went to the shelter on Friday to donate dog food and said he was angry when he found out about the drug burns.

“Why the hell are they destroying drugs inside the city limits?” Ettlemen asked. “There’s so many other places in the middle of nowhere.”