The quartet musicians who make up American metalcore band Silent Planet are recovering, and counting their blessings, after they were involved in a rollover accident in Nevada earlier this month. As the band headed out on tour, and after just a single show, their van rolled down a snowy embankment and landed upside down on the side of the road, resulting in one band member being rushed to the hospital.
The incident occurred during the early morning hours of Nov. Nov. 3 as the band was traveling through rural Wyoming. Recounting the terrifying crash on Instagram, where he posted several of the crash site, frontman Garrett Russell explained that the band’s “driver hit a patch of ice and our vehicle spun and flipped, rolling off the side of the freeway.” After the van came to a stop, Russell said he and his fellow bandmates – guitarist Mitchell Stark, bassist Thomas Freckleton, and drummer Alex Camarena – “awoke up at different moments after the crash, yelling for each other, scattered wherever the crash had flung us upside-down. Although they were all conscious and alive, and “most of the group was miraculously unharmed,” Russell suffered a head wound in the incident.
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“I (Garrett) found that blood was streaming from my head. Using whatever we could find laying around the van, we clothed ourselves pressed the wound to stem the bleeding until first responders came,” Russell wrote. “I was rushed to the hospital where they stopped the bleeding, took MRI’s, and stapled my head wound back together. Everyone in the band is feeling it, but we are extremely fortunate to all be able to walk away from this crash… and not have to bury a friend.”
While Russell said the band is “grateful to be alive,” he went on to explain that they are also contending with the fact that this is going to put us in a seemingly impossible financial situation. Only a day into tour, we’ve yet to generate any income from this tour, and are still financially in the red.” Following the crash, the band created a GoFundMe page to help cover the expenses associated with the crash and help get them back on tour. That GoFundMe surpassed its goal, exceeding $70,000, within a day.
Reacting to the show of support and love that surrounded Silent Planet following the accident, Russell returned to Instagram a day later, sharing that he was “holding back tears of gratitude.” He went on to write, “Today we’ve experienced another miracle: You,” sharing that “the money that has come in has been enough to pay the many expenses required to get back on the road… and now it appears that there’s to cover the expenses associated with future transportation.” He concluded by writing, “please know that we will never forget what happened here over the last day… We love all. Thanks for being the most hospitable community in earth.”
