The Ghost Inside's bus crashed nearly a decade ago, killing the bus driver, rocking the metal scene and just recently, drummer Andrew Tkaczyk breaks down every moment of the accident on his bandmate Chris Davis' podcast with Josh Korel, Late For Load In.
Posted on May 28th, Korel and Davis queried into the crash itself, with Davis recounting his own memories first, "I woke up – literally – split second before the impact. So, I remember a lot of it…" Davis explained.
"We were marathoning through all of the Star Wars movies, and that night, we all stayed up, watched a Star Wars movie together, and me and [Jonathan] Vigil's friend, Arman [Armando Cardona], were still up in the front lounge, hanging out. Driver got on the bus, and I was like 'Aw fuck, that must mean it's super late, went to bed. And then, everything was normal, and all of a sudden, I felt like a – and anybody who's touring a bus knows the feeling of the bus slamming on the brakes, it always jolts you awake for a second, and you go right back to sleep. You know, it's normally when somebody is cutting off the bus or something, but I could tell instantly, with how aggressive the breaking was, I was like – this is not that, this is something else."
"Literally, my eyes opened, and then 'Bam!," Davis smacked his fist into his palm to imitate the collision, "I woke up, 'Bam!.' So, I remember everything from that point. I was conscious for all of it. I remember all of it, and I think it's probably different for you, Andy, right?"
Andrew Tkaczyk, who lost a leg in the accident, nodded, "I do remember quite a bit."
He started off with a recollection of his own night, "I remember my night before, probably had a few beers with the boys, you know? I remember me being me. I was being loud, doing some noise or whatever. I remember Jim [Riley] coming up from the back going, 'It's fucking three in the morning, dude,' in dad mode, and I'm just like, 'Whatever,' you know? And then from then on, I remember getting in my bunk thinking, 'Alright, I should go to bed.' I don't know what time it was, but it was late enough. That was the last thing I remember of life as I knew it, actually, was that interaction and then going to lay down."
Tkaczyk then started explaining the accident itself, "Because the next thing I remember was feeling the bus, and to me, it just felt like when you're on a public transportation bus and you're like looking down on your phone… and you just feel it rock and bump. I was asleep, but it felt not crazy to me at the time, it just felt like we were kind of swerving, and I heard a really loud sound. So, it felt like minimal shaking and a loud bang."
"I woke up, I don't know how long later, and I was in the rubble," recalled the aftermath, "I was in like pieces of chunks of wood and sharp metal, wires from the bus because there was like a full-on, functioning studio on our bus… and I was seeing like cables and wires like just dangling… There were two condo bunks on driver's side, front lounge front, so very top front condo… I was the very first, top condo on the driver's side… The bus got so obliterated I think we all ended up – it was like taking fucking Yahtzee dice in a cup and throwing it. We all just ended up fucking anywhere."
Davis and Korel were quiet as Tkaczyk continued, "I just remember, waking up, and it was morning, I could tell, but it was just like so dazed, and I was like for a second, thought I was dreaming still. But then, I was hearing some screaming. I distinctly remember hearing Zach [Johnson] and Arman screaming–"
"–Same," Davis chimed in quietly as Tkaczyk described the horror of the crash,
"And all I could smell was diesel fuel, and I'm just laying there, and there's sharp wood digging into my hip and back, and I'm just like, 'What the fuck? There's no way this is actually happening, I'm fucking dreaming.' And then I came to, and I just kept hearing it, and I remember being kind of touch and go, in and out… I had one moment where I go 'Oh, we actually got in a fucking accident. This is really happening. This is a nightmare that is actually happening,'" Tkaczyk recounted.
"Suddenly, something just goes, breathe in through your nose, not your mouth. Just don't panic. Don't pass out. Don't have a heart attack from this. Just breathe, drown out the noise of the screaming, it happened, accept it. Just breathe until you get to the hospital."
Tkaczyk explained rather calmly that, "There was one point where I looked down and I saw my right leg. I saw my heel where your toes should be on my foot, and I just looked away and I went, 'Fuck. Leg's broken.'"
"You didn't feel pain?" Korel asked rather incredulously.
Tkaczyk shakes his head, "Not a fucking thing, not an inkling of pain. Nothing. I remember someone in one of the podcasts saying that they heard me say, 'I can't feel my leg,' but I almost think someone else said that. I don't think that was me."
"I heard Tony [Charles Anthony Billings] say that," Davis confirmed.
"Yeah, it wasn't me, because I went into a fucking zen somehow. What told me to do that? I don't know, I just laid there, I was breathing for what felt like not that long to me. I found out is over two hours that we were laying there. There was one point, I think what happened with like the whole lights out, hearing a bang, waking up and I did hit my head. I had a TBI [Traumatic Brain Injury] where my doctor said I was probably knocked unconscious for like 30 minutes or something. I don't know if I was like in the in-and-out of it thing, there was a point – I swear to God – this was at a point where I could tell people were showing up… you could hear first responders, I remember Timmy [Timothy Irons] coming up and pouring water [to] keep me going. I swear to God, I heard someone walk by and go, 'Yeah, Chris is dead.' I have a memory of hearing that."
Davis and Tkaczyk continued to go back and forth about the accident, with Korel offering them the silence to do so. You can check out the rest of what Tkaczyk had to say about his accident below. The discussion of the accident starts around the 1:28:00 mark.
