Artist News

Baroness frontman posts update on post-crash recovery

By | Published on Friday 5 October 2012

Baroness

Baroness frontman John Baizley has posted a lengthy update to the US metal band’s website describing the bus crash they were involved in here in the UK in August and his continued recovery from the injuries he sustained.

As previously reported, ten people, including the four band members, were travelling in the bus when it crashed and fell off a 30 foot viaduct near Bath. Seven people were taken to hospital with minor injuries. However, Baizley and the driver, who had both been at the front of the bus, had to be freed from the wreckage.

Describing how the accident happened, Baizley wrote: “The brakes in our bus failed completely, on a notoriously dangerous, incredibly steep (12% grade) hill in Monkton Combe, UK … [It] went entirely out of control, and we had no choice other than hitting a perpendicular guardrail going about 50mph at the bottom of the hill. The guard rail and the 20 or 30 trees we ploughed through snapped like matchsticks as we went fully airborne and fell down more than 30 feet off of a viaduct to the ground below… There was nothing anyone on the bus could have done during our descent to avoid the crash, and no one – the local residents, the police or any of us – can believe we survived the impact”.

Having been thrown into the windscreen when the bus hit the ground, Baizley was left with a badly broken leg and arm, resulting in a two week stay in hospital, and a further three weeks recuperating in the UK before being allowed to fly back to the States.

He continued: “While I cannot lift a glass of water to my lips to drink with my left arm and hand, I am still able to play music with it. I picked up a guitar and played the day after I returned. Not without pain (for the time being), but the hand still acts out the creative impulses I give it. I’m told I was quite lucky to have regained any use at all of my hand and arm, though I have sustained quite extensive nerve damage”.

As a result of this, wrote Baizley, he is determined to continue with Baroness once he and his bandmates have recovered enough, and vowed to reschedule all of the tour dates that the band were forced to cancel after the crash.

“I have no regrets about touring”, he said. “I don’t blame music or the touring lifestyle for my current physical state, or for the accident itself. It happened the same way all things happen: randomly. If I was a carpenter, and I was injured on the way to the job-site, I wouldn’t consider quitting my job. That is truly how I see this situation. Baroness doesn’t stop because we got hurt on the way to work. We love what we do much more than that, and we have chosen this path because it offers us an unpredictable adventure”.

To read Baizley’s full (and very graphic in places) update, click here.



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