The (not so) Great Trailer Crash!

Here it is. A blog about the great trailer crash. I was asleep for the first part of it, but here’s what I understand happened.

After the Tulsa show, we drove to Kim’s cousin’s house where we could park for the night, and shower the next day. Junior got up early because the bus brakes weren’t as responsive as they usually are, so he wanted to get them checked out before we headed to New Mexico. We’re driving down the road, Kim’s cousin Tony leading us, when Junior notices the trailer is no longer in the back up camera!!!! He called Tony and asks him to see if he can find the trailer since it’s hard running all over the place in a giant bus.

This is what he finds:

We turn the bus around and head to where he found it. The trailer hitch completely broke off from the BUS! The safety chains and things that engage the brakes are all attached to the hitch, so when that came off, there was nothing stopping the trailer. Except the big metal pole… As unlucky as it was that it hit that pole out in the middle of the country, rather than slowly rolling to a stop in the middle of the field, we got lucky in so many other ways.

We found it on the other side of the road. That means it crossed the center line. Luckily it didn’t hit anyone!

There were also small wooden poles every so often along the road. We could have potentially taken out one of those and knocked out power.

We were in the city where Kim’s cousin lived so we had someone to help us out.

It was a day off, and early, so we had some time to deal with this without having to cancel a show. Plus, he happened to have a trailer we could temporarily put everything into to get it out of the field.

It was daylight out, and not raining (it did start sprinkling a bit), so we could see what we were doing.

I can’t even imagine what would have happened if this had happened on the highway, late at night, on the way to a show! It’s scary to think about.

When we got to the crash site, the boys and Junior got out to take pictures (lol), Tony went to grab his trailer so we had somewhere to put everything, and I had to put real clothes on and grab some coffee because I had literally just woken up!

The front of the trailer hit the pole on the right side. The sudden stop caused the left side of the front to rip open and everything to go flying out! Towards the end of the clean up I was wandering in the field making sure we got everything, when I found a carved skull a fan had given Kim at least 10 feet away from everything. It must have FLOWN and then rolled in order to get way out there!

The grates I use to hang shirts were against the right side of the trailer, they ripped open the side door and got mangled. You can see them sticking out in front of the pole in the first picture.

We quickly got to work throwing shirts into garbage bags (pretty much all of the merch tubs were smashed beyond recognition), and putting gear into some sort of organized manner. Soon I felt a bit of sprinkling in the air, so I ran around grabbing all paper merch (posters, Aaron Bordner art work, comic books, etc) and threw them on the bus. Luckily the rain held off.

One thing I don’t understand was the trailer hitch was embedded into the ground pretty deep. Junior and Tony literally had to dig it out of the ground so we could get the piece that attaches to the bus. I’m surprised that the trailer was stopped by a pole and not digging itself into the ground. That had to have been some force!

That's part of the trailer to the left side, and a giant mound of dirt covering the hitch in the center

As we were working, the police showed up. He understood that it was an accident, filled out a report for the insurance, and made sure we had some way of getting the trailer out of the field. By then things were mostly in order and Tony was there with his trailer, so Junior, Kim and I went to the repair place to get the hitch reattached.

If you’ve ever seen a live OED show in person or in videos, you know Kim does a lot of thrashing around, heading banging, and whips all 4 feet of her hair around. Well Kim woke up that morning in a lot of pain, barely able to lift her head. They didn’t have her normal chiropractor in the area, but she found a Chinese massage place that may be able to alleviate some of the pain. Junior stayed with the bus while Kim and I Ubered over there.

We get out of the car, and there’s a chiropractor in the same complex. Kim doubted that they accepted walk-ins and probably charged $300. But it said right on the window “walk-ins welcome.” I told Kim the worst that could happen is we go in, ask them how much it is, and leave if it’s a lot. So we went there first. It was almost exactly like the chain Kim usually goes to, but a local one that’s trying to branch out! She hit it at just the right time, there only ended up being one lady ahead of her, and it only cost $30 for an adjustment! I sat in the room while he did it, Kim had some serious cracking going on! The guy seemed really into it too. He was finally putting his skills to use, not just making minor adjustments on soccer moms. Lol.

Our good luck didn’t end there. We went over to the massage place, but there were only 2 guys working and they both had clients. They told us 30 minutes, so we decided to wander around. We got as far as the Pakistani restaurant next door, when a guy came running out. He excitedly told us to come in, he’d give us samples. We’d just eaten with Junior before leaving the bus, but he kept saying “free food,” which apparently is the magic word. We came in, let him know Kim didn’t like spicy and I’m a vegetarian, and he gave us amazing samples accordingly. It was so good, we decided maybe we’d get something small to split, but instead he told us if we bought one, he’d give us one free. It was so good, we both ended up eating almost all of ours, even though we didn’t think we were hungry. THEN, he came out with a FREE kheer rice pudding dessert for us, which was SOOOOOO good! THEN he brought us each a little pack of Saunf - it’s like an after dinner treat mix with candy coated fennel and things. His only request was that we leave a review on Yelp, which we did. I’m torn because I want to tell you guys the name of it so you can all go support the business, but I want it to be our secret place! Kim and I are also thinking we should have girls’ days more often because sometimes people treat you differently, in a positive way, when you’re not surrounded by a gang of boys. Lol.

Eventually we made our way back to the massage place. Junior had texted Kim that the bus was done, he was going to come pick us up soon, and he had possibly found a new trailer. :( So we only got 30 minute massages rather than 60 minutes :( It was still relaxing though, but I think we both really wanted more. Once we were done and all paid, Kim had another text from Junior saying that he was going to get the trailer before getting us, and we should go ahead with the 60 minutes *cries*

There was another complex across the street that had a lot of shopping places, so we wandered over there while waiting for Junior. The first store we went into was Five below, where we ended up doing a ton of shopping and staying until they closed. Oops… After that, we were tired and just wanted to sit down and relax. We were hoping to find a coffee shop or something, but there didn’t see to be any around. We did see a sign for Target, so we headed over there (as we were leaving, we saw a sign for a coffee shop that was in the same area, lol). The Target’s Starbucks was closed, but at least there was a restroom we could use and a bench we could sit on while we waited for Kim’s cousin (who reads this, hi! *waves*) to come pick us up. 

We got back to the house, the new trailer was attached, new merch bins were bought, the boys had switched everything over, and managed to grab some quick showers before we headed to Gallup, NM.

I can’t figure out if Kim’s cousins are good luck or bad luck. These are the same cousins that let us stay at their rental property on the first Otep tour back in 2013. They also saved us when the bus broke down on the Witches Tour last year. Either way, we are so grateful they’ve been around to bail us out of possible disasters. Thank you guys so much!!!

The merch tubs were destroyed, an entire box of posters were bent, but we weren’t able to tell the extent of damage to the gear until we set up for the show the next day. Junior’s kick drum was completely smashed.

The case that holds Kim’s white Witches guitar took a beating as well. From what I’ve heard, there may have been some cosmetic damage, but the guitar seemed to work fine.

I believe part of the mic stand broke too, but luckily the Gallup venue was also a music shop, so Junior got a new piece for it. We borrowed a kick drum for the last 2 shows, and nothing else seemed to be broken. Only time will tell though. 

Despite most of the gear being in tact, we didn’t get off easy. Trailers, bus repairs, bins, etc aren’t cheap :( In order to raise money to cover the costs of the crash, the band was giving away pieces of the kick drum with a minimum of a $10 donation here. There are only so many pieces, so if you’re reading this a week/month/year from now, it may not be available anymore. But, if you’re ever feeling generous, you can always make a donation here.