COOKEVILLE, TN and EL PASO, TX — Separate tour bus crashes injured band members for Hinder and The Ghost Inside Nov. 18 and 19. The Nov. 19 crash near El Paso, pictured here, was the more serious of the two, killing The Ghost Inside’s tour bus driver, Gregory Hoke, 31, along with the driver of an 18-wheeler after a head-on collision.
The other 10 band and crew members aboard The Ghost Inside’s tour bus all sustained critical or serious injuries. Three band members — Andrew Tkaczykt, Jonathan Vigil and Zach Johnson, were airlifted from the scene to University Medical Center in El Paso. The remaining seven were hospitalized as well. All have since been reported to be in stable condition.
The Ghost Inside was en route to the next stop on its Locals Only tour, a Nov. 20 gig near Phoenix, AZ from their Nov. 18 show in Lubbock, TX when, for unknown reasons, their bus collided head-on with the semi. The accident took place near mile marker 63 along U.S. 62/180, a two-lane highway.
Along with Tkaczykt, Vigil and Johnson, the other injured band and crew members include James Riley, Nathan Wilden, Armando Cardona, Charles Anthony Billings, Danny Lupio, Timothy Irons and Christopher Davis.
Hinder’s tour bus was heavily damaged after ramming into the rear of a semi in the eastbound lanes of I-40 near Cookville, NC. The driver was hospitalized and two others aboard — bassist Mike Rodden and a member of the lighting crew — sustained broken ribs.
The remaining four stops on The Ghost Inside’s Locals Only tour, including the Phoenix area show and three others in California, have been canceled. Hinder delayed the launch of its latest tour, canceling the first two shows, which had been set for Nov. 19 and 20 in Charlotte, NC and Baltimore, MD.
A GoFundMe page has been set up for The Ghost Inside at https://www.gofundme.com/aqb5umd8.
