Man, I can’t even imagine the fear a parent would feel in this situation.
Eric Church is known for his signature aviators, but lately he’s been sporting a new accessory: A sling on his left arm.
Earlier this month, Church made an appearance at The Masters wearing the sling on his arm.
And at his recent headlining performance at Tortuga Music Festival, Church started out with his arm wrapped up but quickly ditched the sling, telling the crowd that they were going to become part of his rehab.
And now, Church is opening up about his injury – and the terrifying moments that followed.
Church joined NASCAR driver Chase Elliott on the inaugural episode of Lunch with Lindsay, a podcast hosted by sports broadcaster Lindsay Czarniak.
And right away, they bonded over their mutual injuries. (Elliott was still recovering from his broken leg that he received in a snowboarding accident, which kept him sidelined for six races until his return last week at Martinsville).
According to Church, his broken shoulder was the result of a snowmobile accident while on an annual ski trip over spring break:
“This year was Deer Valley. And we had skied for five or six days and it was glorious. It was great. Great snow.
So I decided, and I kinda pushed my wife on it, but I said let’s go snowmobiling. Let’s do something different. We’ve skied for so many days. Let’s go do it.
And they’ve had so much snow out there, at least for me.
I hadn’t been on a lot of snowmobiles either. And I caught an edge.”
But according to Church, the worst part of the accident was that he had his 8-year old son Hawk with him on the snowmobile when he crashed.
“He crashed with me. So you’re more concerned about him. Luckily he’s ok, but I broke my shoulder pretty good.”
Church doesn’t seem too worried about his own injury – telling Czarniak that he’ll “heal up” and joking that luckily he doesn’t need his arms for what he does – but says that his concern was immediately with his son, who had hit his head in the accident:
“We were 10 miles from where we started and with no cell phone service.
He hit his head pretty good – he had a helmet on, but he hit his head pretty good so we were concerned about a concussion and ended up calling paramedics.
We ended up getting service and calling paramedics, and so I ended up carrying him on this shoulder. The reason I remember is because I had his helmet in my right hand. Ended up carrying him 4 or 500 yards to get him back to where he could be evaluated.
And I never felt my shoulder at all. It was a couple, three hours later that it started to be a problem.”
I’m not a parent, but I can imagine the adrenaline that would kick in when you thought your kid was hurt and you needed to get him to safety, not worrying about your own injuries.
Luckily everybody’s ok (minus Chief’s broken shoulder) and he can look back on it now and tell the story.
Hopefully his shoulder heals up before he heads out on that amphitheater tour this summer though…
You can check out the entire interview from ‘Lunch with Lindsay’ here:
