According to Rolling Stone, the frontman of the band Weezer was injured severely enough in a tour bus accident that the band was forced to cancel their remaining December tour dates. Cuomo suffered three cracked ribs, “painful internal damage” (the injuries were later described by Rolling Stone as a cut on his spleen and a small puncture in his lung) and a lower leg injury, which was not a result of the accident, according to band associate Karl Koch. Cuomo was transported to a larger hospital for observation. Koch wrote on the band’s official website that Cuomo’s condition is improving. “He went from being barely able to talk and open his eyes yesterday to partially sitting up, talking clearly, reading books and checking the Internet, plus his color and energy seemed much brighter.”
Band assistant Sarah Kim was also injured in the accident and fractured a lower vertebrae and two ribs. Koch indicated that Kim was released from the hospital and will begin her “frustrating and painful 3-4 weeks of recovery.” Cuomo’s wife, two-year-old daughter and her nanny and the driver were not injured.
Koch described the accident and wrote that the tour bus skidded on ice and careened across several lanes of traffic on I-90 in upstate New York, crashing over a guardrail and into a muddy ditch. Cuomo was alone, sleeping in the bus’ back lounge at the time of the incident, and he was trapped and unable to speak immediately after the crash due to his injuries. Emergency responders used the “jaws of life” to pry the back window of the bus off to free Cuomo, and Koch writes that he was horrified by the scene once the other buses in the convoy caught up to the accident site.
Koch posted several photographs on the band’s website of the accident and the bus’ extensive damage. He writes, “I couldn’t believe what was happening in front of me, as Rivers lay so helpless, shivering in the center of the chaos, and meanwhile the sun was coming up and revealing an utterly beautiful light covering of snow on the surrounding trees.”
