Jesus, you really, really have to feel for the guy.
For the first time ever, Blink-182‘s Travis Barker has spoken about the horror 2008 plane crash, which claimed the lives of the two pilots, two of his friends, and left him with severe burns on over 60% of his body.
Speaking to Good Morning America, he said during the 11 weeks his spent in hospital, the pain was so excruciating he begged friends to help him end his life.
“I would call friends of mine and say, ‘Yo, I’ll deposit $1 million into whoever’s bank account [if you help me commit suicide].”
“You were willing to pay them a million dollars to take you out?” the interviewer asked.
“Oh, yeah,” he replied. “I mean, they had to take my phone out of my room.”
His new memoir, Can I Say: Living Large, Cheating Death, and Drums, Drums, Drums, revealed that during his stay he underwent a full 27 surgeries and skin grafts.
During the interview, he gave a deadpan account of finding himself on fire after the plane crash, and it is nothing short of horrifying:
“And the plane’s on fire, and my hands are on fire, so I unbuckle my seat belt, and I jump right into the jet, which holds all the fuel. I basically ignite my whole body in fire. I’m so, so soaked in jet fuel, there’s nothing I can do to put the fire out.”
“And then we realise, you know, that we’re out of the plane, and the plane explodes. And then I stayed in burn centres for like the next four months.”
NOW ON @GMA: Blink-182’s @travisbarker recounts death wishes after plane crash… pic.twitter.com/yEl0YIkIlv
— Good Morning America (@GMA) October 20, 2015
Tearing up, Barker said that it was his kids Alabama and Landon (nine and twelve at the time respectively) who got him through in the end, but it was a rough, rough time for them.
“It was hard for them to see me in the state I was in. You know, they’re colouring in class, and everyone’s drawing pictures of family, or what they did on the weekend, and Landon’s drawing a picture of a plane crashing.”
“I mean, it was definitely something that he was old enough to understand.”
A year later, another survivor of that flight, friend and TRV$DJAM bandmate Adam Goldstein, a.k.a. DJ AM, died of a drug overdose.
He’s always been a nervous flyer, but hasn’t been a flight since; he takes the QE2 to travel to overseas gigs. However, he hasn’t ruled it out in the future.
“I tell my children: ‘When you’re ready to fly, I’m ready to fly’.”
If you are feeling suicidal, give Lifeline a call for 24/7 counselling on 13 11 14.
Story and images via Good Morning America / Amanda Edwards via Getty Images.
