The incident occurred in the middle of the band's set during their thrashing punk anthem “Box of Wine,” while Doherty had taken off the guitar to sing back up vocals. The band was forced to move the show from it's original location at
Malone's in Santa Ana after a power outage created a blackout that
blanketed all the businesses and homes in the immediate area. Vocalist Glynnes Pruett of Cheetararah, one of the other bands on the bill, offered up her newly-opened comic book shop as a back up location. What started as a party, quickly turned to panic after Terminally Ill started playing.
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“The moshing and all the people at the show were pushed up right in
front of us, and usually I have a guitar where I can kind of fend people
off but this time I was just singing.” Doherty says at one point he
fell and tripped over one of the amps and fell back to the ground. A
friend picked him up a little too quickly and he fell forward, hitting
his head on a couch.
“I immediately lost all function of anything on my body, he said. For a couple minutes, Doherty had a violent seizure and at one point began foaming at the mouth as fans and friends rushed to call 9-1-1.
“Everything went white and all I could think was “turn the music down,
I'm dying,” he says. “And the next thing I know I woke up and I was on the floor and
there was a fire truck and an ambulance outside.”
Though he didn't go straight to the hospital when firefighters
and paramedics arrived, he did end up admitting himself early the next
morning around 2 a.m. and was released shortly after 9:30 p.m. after
being cleared by a doctor (though he says his license was temporarily
taken away). Though he'd experienced a seizure once before, the
guitarist says he'd never had one that severe. However, both he and the
band say they aren't planning on slowing down as long as health
professionals say he's okay to play. The band has another show planned for next week and is also working on recording a new song. Several days after the incident, Doherty is still adamant about getting back on stage.
“It sucks that we only got
to play three songs that night because we were on fire. We're all just
looking forward to the next show. I'll bring a helmet next time.”
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