'Should be dead right now'; Tulsa band shares freak accident
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. (KFOR) - On Friday, the Oklahoma band, CLIFFDIVER was supposed to perform at an event in Las Vegas. But instead, they find themselves visiting their bass player in the hospital after a terrifying freak accident.
“It was the luckiest unlucky thing to ever happen to anybody," said Joey Duffy, one of the lead singers of the Tulsa-based band. “All five of us should be dead right now.”
Duffy told KFOR on Tuesday, five of the band’s seven members were headed west in their brand-new tour van for a gig scheduled for Friday. The other two members were going to catch up with them later in the week.
They were driving on I-44 near Stroud when they heard “an enormous boom sound that sounded like a cannon being fired.”
"The driver's window kind of just exploded," said Duffy.
As glass and dust filled the air, the band was horrified to see Tyler, their bass player who was driving at the time, unconscious and covered in blood.
"We thought he was shot," said Duffy. “We jumped into action. Our drummer grabbed the wheel for a second to keep it straight. And then our guitarist, Matt, was in the seat behind him. He was able to get up to the front and get his foot off the accelerator because we were speeding up to about 80 at that point.”
Duffy said within minutes, that felt like an eternity, they safely pulled over near mile marker 178 and called 911.
Eventually, the band was informed a steel chain link was lodged in Tyler’s neck.
"The only logical thing is someone going the other way had a giant load on the back of a truck that was pressure, you know, strapped down by these big chains and something happened to one of the chains and just that one chain link snapped and just shot straight over directly into Tyler," said Duffy.
According to Duffy, Tyler lost two liters of blood, spent 19 hours in the ICU and underwent a surgery. Miraculously, he’s doing okay and was walking on Friday.
“He's doing better. He had surgery and they're looking to discharge him in the next couple of days,” said Duffy. “It's unbelievable. He's a warrior." However, Duffy says Tyler’s not out of the woods yet and likely has a long road to recovery ahead of him. CLIFFDIVER has set up a Go Fund Me to help cover the costs of medical expenses, lost income and Tyler’s rehab. The link can be found here.