DJ AM Opens Up About the Plane Crash That Nearly Took His Life
Source: www.celebritysmackblog.com
Adam Goldstein, better known as DJ AM, spoke to People magazine recently, describing the horrific night that he and friend Travis Barker were almost killed in the infamous Learjet crash.
“I’ve prayed every night for the past 10 years. There’s a lot more to thank God for now. My philosophy is ‘live life to the fullest,’ (and) I was saved for a reason. Maybe I’m going to help someone else. I don’t question it. All I know is, I’m thankful I’m still here.”
Although Goldstein is more than grateful to be alive, he is mourning the loss of good friends and the pilots who were killed in the crash.
“My emotions go back and forth. At the first hospital, I screamed, ‘Thank you!’ Then I wondered, ‘Why did I live?’ I can’t believe I made it. Any second, it can all be gone.”
“I saw Travis running and flailing, trying to put out fire on his body. He screamed, ‘What do I do?’ and I said, ‘Roll!’ He did, but the fire didn’t go out,” AM continued. “He tried to rip his clothes off. I finally put the flames out by smothering him with my body. Some of my burns are from that. His sock was on fire - I burned my fingers taking it off.”
Now that’s friendship.
Goldstein’s treatment hasn’t been easy. He says at the Joseph M. Still Burn Center in Augusta, Georgia, he wavered “in and out of consciousness.” Then after taking a bus back to California, he received skin grafts on his arm and neck at Grossman Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital.
“They shaved my head and took layers of skin from my scalp. To heal the wounds, I was in a hyperbaric chamber for 90 minutes twice daily for four days. It’s claustrophobic. One of my first nights home, I watched ‘Iron Man’ with friends. In the scene where Robert Downey Jr. comes out of the cave with a blowtorch, my whole body cringed. That night, I had a nightmare someone spilled fuel on me and was trying to light me on fire. I woke up and thought, ‘Oh my God, this is going to happen forever?’ ”
Adam knows he needs emotional therapy as well as physical, and is considering treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
On Tuesday he attended a welcome home party, an event that raised money for Barker’s assistant, Chris “Lil Chris” Baker, and his bodyguard, Charles “Che.”
[People]
