In June of 2020, emo-mainstay and Dashboard Confessional frontman Chris Carrabba took a motorcycle ride to clear his head. On a rarely traveled country road, not far from his home in Tennessee, the songwriter lost traction, propelling himself and his bike into a ditch.
At first, it was hard to tell if he’d been seriously injured. It was clear that he’d bit through his lip, but appeared generally unscathed in his protective jacket, padded pants and helmet.
A lifelong rider, Carrabba had been involved in a few accidents before. This time—as he tried to regain his composure and remove his Honda dirt bike from the hole—he attributed the pain to what he thought was a broken rib.
It wasn’t until after his ambulance arrived at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville that he realized the severity of his accident. For the first two days of his stay, the doctors believed he may have broken his neck. So, they began to test the sensation in his feet.
“It’s what you see in movies and on TV—and you know it’s not good,” 45-year-old Carrabba explains. “I could feel, but they were hinting that any wrong movement could lead to paralyzation at the worst. That was really frightening.”
While his X-rays did show two inverted vertebrae in his neck, his medical team found the anomalies were not related to his crash—and believe that they could be connected to a decades-old injury or date as far back as birth. Luckily, Carrabba hadn’t broken his neck, but the extent of his injuries—and his journey to recovery—would be far more extreme than he anticipated.
Carrabba extensively broke and dislocated both of his shoulders, severing his biceps and deltoids in the process. But he was right about one thing, he also broke and bruised a few ribs.
The ramifications of his accident weren’t limited to his injuries, which left him with an assortment of screws, pins and plates in his shoulders. He’d also undergo a COVID-19 scare and resulting isolation between major surgeries. Then, after weeks in bed, the singer’s legs would begin to atrophy. A slender man to start, Carrabba would leave the hospital weighing only 117 pounds.
After undergoing surgery to redrape and sew his muscles together, Carrabba could hardly bathe, dress or feed himself. Even more troubling, with loss of muscle memory, motor skills and range of motion, the career musician needed to relearn how to play the guitar from scratch.
On Sunday, eight months removed from his fateful ride, Carrabba will perform for the first time since his accident. In a display of gratitude, love and progress, Dashboard Confessional is hosting a Valentine’s Day concert stream titled, Lonely Hearts and Lovers.
Despite the ongoing devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic (including the screeching halt of live music and Dashboard Confessional’s 20-year anniversary tour), the horrible accident and its subsequent physical and emotional challenges, Carrabba is vigilantly resilient. He explains that he feels strong, hopeful and positive—that every week is better than the week before.
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