Slipnot singer and frontman Corey Taylor has had a rough year thus far, and now he’s revealed that doctors have told him that his broken neck could have left him paralysed if he ignored the injury any longer.
Shortly after Taylor underwent unplanned spinal surgery after a routine checkup revealed that he’d inadvertently broken his neck, he revealed that he had no idea that it was broken and had continued to play shows as if nothing was wrong.
Now, speaking with Revolver, Taylor has admitted that he was suffering symptoms for some time but had ignored them “like a fucking idiot.” He said that a doctor told him that he could easily have been paralysed if the surgery was put off any longer, and that he originally thought that initial symptoms were just signs that he was getting older.
“I was losing strength on my right side. My balance was screwed. The last two or three years have been weird for me, physically. But you get to a certain point where you think it’s just because you’re getting older.
“My doctor sent me to a specialist, and he was like, ‘We need to do surgery right now.’ Me being me, I was like, ‘Is there any way we can reschedule this for after the tour?’ He’s like, ‘No.’
The spinal cord that Taylor suffered was worse than those often suffered by elite sportsmen, including UFC fighters. “He said my spinal cord injury was 20 times worse than what he’s seen with UFC fighters. He pulled up the MRI and goes, ‘You see that? That’s really, really bad – that shouldn’t even be growing like that,” said Taylor.
Watch: Corey Taylor Falls On Stage
