REO Speedwagon singer injured after falling asleep while driving
Terry Luttrell, 78, had signed autographs until the early morning hours after a concert
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REO Speedwagon singer Terry Luttrell is being treated at an Illinois hospital for injuries he suffered from a car crash over the weekend.
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Luttrell, 78, rocked out Saturday at the State Farm Center in Champaign-Urbana with his REO Classics band for a one-night appearance.
According to Luttrell, he was driving along Interstate 57 when he fell asleep behind the wheel and wrecked his car Sunday morning.
“I was able to get up and get out of the car,” Luttrell told The News-Gazette. “The airbag went off and cracked my sternum a little bit. I have a little back pain and neck pain. It’s nothing that can’t be overcome.”
Luttrell said he didn’t sleep much following the concert after signing autographs at an afterparty until the early morning hours.
“It was just sign-sign-sign,” he said.
After leaving the party at 2 a.m., there were dozens of autograph hounds waiting at his hotel as well, he said.
“I had people with Starcastle albums and REO albums,” Luttrell said. “People were really friendly.”
By the time he went to bed, it was 4:30 a.m. He woke up hours later and began travelling to St. Louis for business despite feeling “a little bit sleepy” as the band’s keyboard player followed him in a separate vehicle.
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“It just happened,” Luttrell said. “I nodded off. I rolled the car over, and I woke up and I was in a cocoon (the airbags). Unfortunately, it totalled the car.”
REO Speedwagon guitarist Kevin Cronin said he learned of Luttrell’s injury on Wednesday.
“I wish him the best on a speedy recovery,” he wrote on the band’s Instagram page.
While at the hospital, Luttrell learned that some of the nurses who treated him were at his show.
But overall, Luttrell said the concert “was a good show all the way around.”
“You never know what it’s going to be like,” he said. “Everybody (in the band) was excited. It was just a fun evening.
“It was exactly what we thought it was going to be. It was a one-off concert that will never happen again. To say that you were there was a pretty big thing.”
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