Steve Moakler Is ‘Grateful’ After Surviving Van Crash
Steve Moakler is grateful to be alive following a horrific van crash while driving through the Smoky Mountains on the way to a show in April.
The singer was behind the wheel when it happened and walked away from the accident with some minor bruises and injuries. In an interview with the Boot, Moakler shares that things are back to normal with the exception of his Mercedes Sprinter van, which was destroyed in the accident.
Moakler and his band were on their way to a concert in Asheville, N.C., when the accident happened. He was driving through the rain on a winding highway, and as he drove over the crest of a hill he saw brake lights up ahead, but he couldn't stop in time.
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"I slammed the brakes, but with the rain and the weight of the trailer pushing us, I just didn't have enough time to stop," he says. "We slid with our brakes locked up for about three football fields, so I saw it coming for a good five seconds. There were two tractor trailers that I had the option of hitting, and there was just nowhere I could turn, so I hit the back of one of them. It was scary."
The truck drivers quickly came to his rescue and pulled him out from behind the steering wheel, where he was stuck. He didn't realize how bad the accident was until the first responders got to the scene.
"When the first responders came and I saw them looking at me amazed that I was walking around, suddenly I felt amazed, and grateful. I'm still alive, and I almost wasn't," he says, pointing to a healing wound on his forearm. "This is from the accident, and it's going to be a scar. It's cool to have this as a little reminder. I see this, and it definitely reminds me that my life could have stopped, and it didn't. And I'm excited to see what comes next."
Moakler's latest single is "Born Ready," which he wrote with truckers in mind. Moakler was asked to create a song for a trucking company, but eventually, it evolved into a song about his own story. “It started as, 'I’m gonna write a song for them,' and quickly became ‘Hey, there’s a lot of me in this song, too,'" he tells Taste of Country. After being rescued by several truckers, he says the song holds even more meaning to him today.
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