Chuck Wicks Recovering From Fractured Skull, Vertebrae

Chuck Wicks is feeling lucky to be alive — and not paralyzed — following the car accident he and his America’s Morning Show co-hosts were in on Monday.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Wicks recounted the accident, and offered fans an update on his condition.

A Tuesday (Feb. 28) statement from Nashville’s WKDF NashFM 103.3, America’s Morning Show’s home station, reported that Wicks and co-hosts Ty Bentli, Kelly Ford and producer Glenn Johnson were headed from Columbus, Miss., where they were visiting Afffiliaite WKOR, to New Orleans, La., where they were scheduled to serve as grand marshals in a Mardi Gras parade, when their car accident occurred, according to The Boot.com.

While driving through a major rainstorm, the vehicle the four radio personalities were in hit a puddle and hydroplaned; the vehicle rolled over twice and came to a stop in a ditch.

“Talk about slow motion … It was if the world literally stopped,” Wicks remembers. “When the vehicle did finally stop, I immediately heard Ty say, ‘Is everyone OK … Is everyone OK.’ Then, for some random reason, I just starting checking my teeth and body and checking where everyone was. At this moment, it was safe to say I was in shock.”

Wicks goes on to explain that he, Bentli, Ford and Johnson crawled out of their vehicle, “which is completely totaled at this point,” and soon, a number of emergency personnel arrived at the crash site.

Chuck Wicks - Hospital Selfie

“Throughout the entire process, I remember my neck just getting stiffer and stiffer, and between the shock of everything and being soaken [sic] wet from rolling through the water-filled ditch, I couldn’t stop shaking,” Wicks shares. “I told the paramedic I had neck and head pain, and they immediately put me on the backboard / stretcher. As my head got stiffer through the ride and I knew everyone else was OK, I started to panic a bit … and honestly I was scared.”

Following the crash, Wicks, Bentli, Ford and Johnson were transported via ambulance to a Hattiesburg, Miss., hospital. Bentli, Ford and Johnson were all treated and released, but Wicks was held overnight “for some additional observation,”

Nash FM’s statement explains. In his Facebook post, Wicks writes that he was sent to the emergency room and set up for a CAT scan and an MRI.

“When the doctor looked at my results and said I was lucky to be walking and talking, then I knew something wasn’t right,” Wicks admits. “So here’s the deal … I fractured my skull and I also have a cervical vertebrae fracture in my C2 region. What does this mean? It means I’m lucky I’m alive and not paralyzed.”

Wicks will be in a neck brace for “about three months, with a lot of discomfort for a while,” he writes, adding that when he’s not “jacked up on morphine … it’s pretty painful."