On Wednesday, July 18, Bob Otis—vocalist of Decibel Hall of Fame inductees and lifer punk/crust/grinders Dropdead—crashed while riding on his motorcycle with Kaleigh Melise (who plays in Lolita Black with Otis) while trying to brake on the road outside a car wash in Providence, Rhode Island. The road was coated in soapy water and oil from cars and Otis went down, rolling 25 feet on the road. He suffered six broken ribs, multiple lacerations, as well as bruises and road rash.
To make matters worse, this is just the latest in a series of medical situations for Otis, but friends have come together to create a GoFundMe, which, after being up for only one day, was at $12,632 of its $15,000 goal. Otis has at least $30,000 in bills not being covered by his basic health insurance.
Otis, who is also still dealing with repercussions from a car accident in the early 2000s, had been released from the hospital but Dropdead bandmate Ben Barnett posted on July 23 that Otis was going back to the hospital as he was having a hard time breathing and is in “great pain.”
“I can’t move more than six inches either way without screaming in pain,” Otis wrote on Facebook on July 21. In a post the next day, he said that he’s “absolutely overwhelmed” with all the heartfelt messages he has received, which, at that point, had numbered over 1,000.
There are plans for a local benefit show to take place in August; if people want to be involved, they can contact Dropdead’s Ben Barnett through the GoFundMe page.
