HARDY is sharing new details about his near-fatal bus accident in 2022. He, and everyone else, recovered, although everyone suffered serious injuries in the crash. HARDY also later took some time took some time off the road to deal with anxiety and panic attacks following the harrowing ordeal.
HARDY, whose real name is Michael Hardy, tried several forms of therapy, including EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). He now boldly talks about his treatment, and how he recovered.
“After this whole experience, I’ve got no shame,” HARDY says in Rolling Stone‘s Nashville Now podcast (via People). “It was so overwhelming for me that I really just don’t wish that on anybody… It’s more taboo for men to speak out on it and I know that there’s guys out there that are just eating it every day, and that’s not good for you,”
What Happened in HARDY’s Bus Accident
On October 2, 2022, HARDY, along with his friend and photographer Tanner Gallagher, and HARDY’s manager, were on the way home from Bristol, Tennessee, when the bus driver stopped to use the restroom. HARDY remembers asking him if he was okay, although he wasn’t confident in his answer.
“We got about two more miles down the road, and he had either an aneurysm or seizure while driving, and we barreled off the side of the road,” recalls the singer. “The bus flipped over three times.”
Everyone in the bus was knocked unconscious. HARDY was the first to awaken, realizing the ceiling of the bus was now the floor.
“It went from being a bus to a movie set, like a bomb went off,” the father of one recounts. “I crawled out of the front windshield, which was busted open… The bus had gone so far down the hill that you couldn’t see it from the highway. So, all these trucks and cars were flying by, and they couldn’t see us.”
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What Happened to HARDY After the Accident
HARDY climbed to the highway and tried desperately to flag someone down to get help, which finally came, after more than 30 minutes. Everyone also fortunately healed from their injuries. But for HARDY, the impact is permanent. His new album, Country! Country! reflects those changes.
“[The record] either talks about being proud of who you are and kinda going down like that or like living your life. Go to Paris… Live your life because we’re going to die and that’s a headspace I’ve lived in over the past couple of years,” he says.
HARDY admitted after the accident that his emotional and mental injuries took a lot longer to heal than his physical ones.
“When you go through a really hard time, I think it’s good for you, because it’s all part of the processing. But sometimes it’s tough to go back to those places,” HARDY shares on Audacy’s Katie & Company. “And a lot of mine came from trauma from the bus accident that I hadn’t really worked through yet. So kind of having to go back to that can be tough.
“But I was in a really, really dark place, and was just dealing with a lot of, honestly, just anxiety, like this uncontrollable wave of horrible anxiety,” he continues. “And I had a week that was like hell week for me, and I just, I couldn’t. I don’t know what happened. And not conveniently or coincidentally — it was very not coincidental — but it was a year to the day of the bus wreck, was when everything just started happening.”
Photo Credit: CMA