Sammy Hagar made a big sacrifice for Van Halen fans.
In the new episode of Hagar’s ‘Storytime,’ Hagar explained the accident he had back in the late 80s. During one of their set, the rocker fell down and fractured his tailbone. However, he still kept singing since he didn’t want to end the show. The rocker explained how the accident happened:
“So the first song, Summer Nights, you know, ‘Summer nights and my radio,’ I’m singing the first chorus, I start stepping backwards. I stumbled onto the stairs and hit my tailbone right in the corner of one of them metal things. And it actually cut through my leather pants. And I was numb, I fell down the stairs and I got back up and I kept singing, but I felt really weird. And I was numb, completely numb, like, so I reached back bloody hand. I’m going ‘Oh, my God.’ And I felt the bump back there as big as a frickin’ orange.”
The rocker says it’s one of the worst injuries he has ever had. Still, he didn’t leave the stage and kept his fans happy:
“In between the next two songs, Eddie was playing a little long intro and I ran over to my side of the stage and I said to my guy, ‘What’s going on?’ He’s going ‘Dude, you don’t want to know.’ And he goes, ‘Oh my God!’ He starts looking at it and saying this, right. I can’t see it. I’m like, oh my God, I’m going to faint. He goes, ‘Sit in this bucket of ice!’ He shoves me in his bucket of ice. Bottom line, make it through the show and get to the hospital. And I had a fractured tailbone, vertebrae completely knocked out of whack, and had to have stitches across it actually cut. It was brutal. So it’s the worst injury I’ve ever had because it was the first show of a 30-city tour, stadium tour. Huge pressure to do it. Never missed one show, couldn’t sing the whole damn time because I flying back and forth to my doctor.”
Hagar Met Sting Thanks To The Injury
The only good thing about the injury is that Hagar met Sting on his visits to the doctor’s office. He continued in the same video and explained the other problems he faced:
“It’s how I met Sting, he was at my doctor’s office too, and so it was just horrendous. Until the last show in Denver, Colorado, I couldn’t hit the high note in ‘Eagles Fly’ because I got a sinus infection, an ear infection from flying, and the throat, I got run down, I got sick. I was on antibiotics. Every day I had to have a doctor show up in my room in the morning and give me a shot, a steroid shot in the spot so I could stand up straight and it was brutal.”
You can see the rest of the video below.