Cynics' Spain tour ends with injury to lead singer (Extreme Freak Injury to Urethra Alert!)

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | Jan. 27, 2003 | Ed Masley

[mountaineer]

The Cynics were nearing the end of a sold-out tour of Spain two weeks ago when lead singer Michael Kastelic was hospitalized with a torn urethra after being pulled off stage.

He's still in Spain recovering, but says he's "on the mend" and may be back in Pittsburgh as early as Wednesday.

[mountaineer]

This might also be a socialized medicine alert - does anyone know?

In any event, remember this poor lad the next time you think you've had a rough day!

[mountaineer]

The Cynics were nearing the end of a sold-out tour of Spain two weeks ago when lead singer Michael Kastelic was hospitalized with a torn urethra after being pulled off stage.

Michael Kastelic of the Cynics changes hospitals in Spain, where an onstage injury forced the cancellation of the band's remaining tour dates while leaving Kastelic stranded in Madrid. He's being wheeled across the street by Jaime Garcia, brother of Barbara Garcia, the Cynics' translator and wife of guitarist Gregg Kostelich.

He's still in Spain recovering, but says he's "on the mend" and may be back in Pittsburgh as early as Wednesday.

Speaking by phone on Friday from a hospital bed in Madrid, the singer recounted the story that left him stranded in Madrid, just like the title of the Cynics' live recording from one their earlier tours of Spain.

"It was the second show in Madrid," he says, "and I wish I could say it was some dramatic thing where I was jumping off the stage or something, but actually, I was just kind of standing there. It was near the last song, on "Love Me Then Go Away," and someone was grabbing my leg like they wanted me to jump into the audience, which I probably brought on myself because I did jump into the audience at the previous show in Madrid, the week before. So they were waiting for me to do it again. But I didn't want to because I knew I would get torn to pieces down there. It was a pretty far drop. So I tried to keep one of my legs on the stage to not fall and I ended up just doing a wishbone split with the edge of the stage, the very corner of it, landing right on my unmentionables. So it sort of sliced the urethra."

He kept singing, though, and as the song went on, he started thinking the fall had made him wet his pants.

"I kept looking down and this wet stain was forming there," he says. "And after we ended the song, I ran off to the side and stuck my hand down there and pulled it out and it was just covered in blood. So then I pulled my pants down and there was just blood shooting out."

They stopped the show, and Kastelic was escorted outside.

"Thank God," he says, "this is the first time we had a road manager who had a clue. He grabbed me and ran me outside the club, put some newspapers down on his van seat and had me sit there while they were trying to get an ambulance. And of course, since everything here takes a million years, they couldn't get an ambulance fast enough, so he grabbed a cab driver who was actually at the show and, I think, pretty drunk. But he was just a fan and he offered. His cab was right there."

That got him to the hospital, but at that point, his troubles were only beginning.

"I'm lying on this freezing cold metal table bleeding to death, I think," he says. "I told Pepe, our promoter, 'I'm gonna die in Madrid. I'm bleeding to death. I'm bleeding to death.' They didn't even know what to do at the hospital. They said they didn't have a urologist there, at least not in the emergency room. So they had to take me from there in an ambulance, with no suspension at all, so I'm bouncing around in this little thing in the back of this rickety ... I remember my dad and uncle used to call them meat wagons. So I'm here in this meat wagon still saying 'I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die, Pepe.' And at this point, he's looking at me saying 'No you're not,' but I can see in his eyes, he's thinking 'Maybe he is gonna die.'"

He spent the next 12 hours in a second emergency room.

"They had to put some tube in my bladder and catheterize me and blood was still coming out," he says. "So I spent most of the night there on this hard metal table, and then they didn't have a room for me, so they just wheeled me out into this cold hallway full of gurneys and moaning, groaning dying people and I spent the rest of the morning there."

He eventually wound up in a room for six.

"With no one under 80," he says. "The oldest was 94. All dying. And all but one in diapers, which needed to be changed on a regular basis. So I was lying there for almost a week surrounded by diaper changing, standing enemas, smells and sights no man should see or smell or experience."

He laughs as he tells the story, but he wasn't laughing all the time.

"Thank God," he says, "my parents were in touch with the embassy or something and got me transferred to this place across the street which is total rock star treatment. It's like a four-star hotel. They come and bathe you and everything. So I've been here for, like, the last four or five days."

At the other hospital, he says, "I saw eight different people in eight different days. And the male interns, even though they probably knew it wasn't something that serious and you weren't gonna die from it, they couldn't even look at it without getting sick. So I thought I was dying because they would look at it and they would just look horrified. And I thought 'Oh my God! What is this?' "

Aside from the pain and the horrible fear of dying, the worst part was lying there thinking about how well he'd been behaving on the tour.

"I wasn't going out or having fun at all except for the shows," he says. "And every time we weren't playing, I would stay in the hotel room and sleep. I wasn't drinking. I would wear a mask over my face in the van so I wouldn't catch a cold. I wanted to do the best shows we could possibly do and they were this time. Everyone said it was the best they'd ever seen us. And then this has to happen. So that's what you get. I try to be good."

The doctors removed all the tubes from his body Friday, and a full recovery is expected. As for the Cynics and what this means for them, the singer says he hopes to be on stage again by late spring, early summer. After all, he's got a Spanish tour to finish.

"The promoter here, Pepe, couldn't be happier," he says, with a laugh. "He said it's the best publicity in the world. He can't wait for us to come back over. It was on the radio and on the TV. It's, like, big news. He said, 'This is great. It's a great story. We're putting that it happened to you and then you continued to play four songs' ... and all this [nonsense]. 'It's great publicity,' he says. But I could do without that kind of publicity."

[mountaineer]

Oops, sorry for double post. The story didn't show up at first.

[AnAmericanMother]

Easy for Pepe to say . . .

It wasn't his Pe . .

oh, never mind . . .

[null and void]

So it sort of sliced the urethra."

He kept singing, though, and as the song went on, he started thinking the fall had made him wet his pants.

What a trooper! The show must go on...

[wimpycat]

"I kept looking down and this wet stain was forming there," he says. "And after we ended the song, I ran off to the side and stuck my hand down there and pulled it out and it was just covered in blood. So then I pulled my pants down and there was just blood shooting out."

Ow! Ow! Ow! My urethra hurts just reading about this, and I'm not even a guy!

[tdadams]

The pain in Spain falls mainly on the ... uh, nevermind.

[mountaineer]

'Burgh bandmember damages his member (ping the usual suspects).

[Frank_Discussion]

Yeah, but imagine how pissed off he was...

[mountaineer]

The Spanish Health Care system has been shaped by all the public health structures and services, which are formed by the State Administration Health Care Services and those of the Autonomous Communities. Each Autonomous Community forms a Health Care Service integrated by all the centres, services and establishments of the Community, the Diputacion, the City Hall and other intercommunity Territorial Administrations.

The planning for each Community Health Care Service is based on geographical limits, the Health Care field and the basic structures of the health care system, which are responsible for the united management of the centres and establishments of the different Health Care Services of the Autonomous Communities within their territorial limits and for the health care services and the programmes developed by them.

http://www.sispain.org/SiSpain/english/health/structur.html

[Dan Day]

Yeah, but imagine how pissed off he was...

I just keep thinking about how bad the "pain is".

[Frank_Discussion]

Ouch. I have been out-punned...

[SandfleaCSC]

Pain in his wang caused mainly in Spain.

[Lord_Baltar]

Ooooooooooohhhhhh...

[mountaineer]

I just wonder if this means he'll be singing soprano from now on.

[xsmommy]

if i were mhking, i would be posting a hold my urethra alert....; )

[CholeraJoe]

Absolutely classic mechanism of injury. Straddle injury snaps the urethra like a chicken's neck.

[xsmommy]

ouch.

[martin_fierro]

	It's a 'Burgh Thing.TM
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[AnAmericanMother]

I see a future in show business for the chicken.