We all know by now that driving might be harmful in an almost limitless variety of methods. You can get crashed into by one other automobile, have a ladder fall off the again of a truck in entrance of you, have a tire blow out for no motive, you could be a hearth truck close to a Tesla, and so forth. Unfortunately, there’s a brand new method for driving to wreck you, and sadly for the Tulsa, Oklahoma band Cliffdiver, they came upon what it was on a current drive from their hometown to Vegas.
The band set off from Tulsa tremendous enthusiastic about this primary journey of their new, way more luxurious tour van, solely to have all of it go very, very fallacious roughly an hour in. According to guitarist/vocalist Matt Ehler, all the things was going easily till instantly there was “an enormous BOOM sound that sounded like a cannon being fired as the entire front of the van filled with glass shards and dust” from the driving force’s aspect window being impacted by one thing.
Immediately after, he seen that bassist Tyler Rogers was lined in blood and that blood was spraying out of his neck. As terrifying as that’s, Rogers’ being the driving force meant that his foot matted the fuel pedal when he misplaced consciousness, and the van started to speed up. Ehler labored to get his foot off the pedal and take management of the steering wheel, however Rogers being belted in made this tough.
Eventually, Ehler was in a position to primarily sit in Rogers’ lap and produce the van to a cease so they might start administering first help to Rogers. Band members within the again shouted directions on what to do for first help and tips on how to apply stress to the wound whereas one other known as 911. Thankfully the band was proper subsequent to a mile marker making the van straightforward to search out.
Emergency providers arrived promptly and loaded Rogers into an ambulance, throughout which era he briefly regained consciousness, a lot to the band’s aid, and was taken to a close-by hospital for lifesaving surgical procedure. The docs estimated that he had misplaced upwards of two liters of blood. For reference, the human physique holds round 5 in complete (or roughly 1.25 gallons).
The sheriff who got here to research mentioned that a big damaged chain hyperlink discovered lodged in Rogers’ neck probably got here from a failed load-bearing chain on a passing semi-truck. When the chain failed beneath pressure, the hyperlink shot off at extraordinarily excessive pace, and Cliffdiver’s van had turned out to be within the fallacious place on the fallacious time.
Thankfully, luck was on Rogers’ aspect as a result of, because of his bandmates’ fast considering and first help, he was in a position to make it to the hospital alive regardless of a puncture to his carotid artery and lacerations to his jugular vein, in addition to neck fractures. The odds of his survival had been extremely low, however he was moved out of the ICU and into restoration lower than 24 hours after surgical procedure, and it looks like he’ll make a full restoration with no mind injury from the blood loss.
Naturally, with this occurring, the band has needed to cancel exhibits, and Tyler Rogers shall be unable to work for a while, so the band has arrange a GoFundMe web page to assist along with his medical bills. We’re positive it’d be appreciated if you wish to chip in a couple of bucks or purchase Cliffdiver’s music on Bandcamp.
Source: jalopnik.com