Lead guitarist Ben Melero of Spanish melodic death metal outfit, Jotnar, was involved a motorcycle accident and its consequences almost lead to him losing an arm. The guitar player was driven by another motorcycle last October and woke up in the Emergency Room with six broken ribs, scapula and collarbone broken. He had surgery on the collarbone and have been undergoing physical and occupational therapy since.

About the accident, Ben says: “It was a little scary. I was driving my bike and without even notice, I woke up laying down in the ER with a lot of pain in the back. I had a few flashes of myself laying down in the road with no breath, and then in the ambulance. It seems that another bike crashed with a car and his bike went off and hit the side my bike.”

The guitarist had been in physical and occupational therapy since the surgery, but after a couple months, the doctors detected a thrombosis in the left arm artery that impeded the flow of blood to the arm.

Ben says: “I had no idea what was happening but I knew something went really wrong. Many times, I woke up with a lot of pain in the arm and hand, like numbness or tingling in the hand for couple of hours with a lot of pain and my hand and arm went completely white. After many tests and a few doctors, the vascular surgeon told me that I had absolutely no pulse in my left arm and that I could have lost the arm, but fortunately, there was just enough blood coming through the secondary veins to keep the arm “alive”. The moment the doc told me that I had no pulse and that I could have lost the arm, was like if I was in a movie. I really could not believe it.”

Jotnar signed a record deal with Massacre Records and released Connected/Condemned album in 2017, toured with Sonic Syndicate and played in a few European Festivals. The band was about to close a European tour when Ben had the accident. Due to the seriousness of the accident, the band decided to cancel the tour until the guitarist recovered.

Ben says: “I was really pissed off. I was dying to go back on stage to play the Connected/Condemned album but everything we worked so hard went to the garbage. We were going to do a great European tour supporting a big band, but we had to step out of the bill. This is the reason why we have been so quiet these months.”

The band will start writing new material for their next album when Ben recovers completely from the accident, and plan to be back in the studio next year.
 

Connected/Condemned tracklisting:

“Connected/Condemned”
“Remaining Still”
“Missing Shadows”
“Broken Esteem” (feat. Björn “Speed” Strid - Soilwork)
“Suicidal Angel”
“Live Together Die Alone”
“Starved Of Guidance”
“I, The Paradox”
“The Sentence”
“Invisible Trace”
“The Loneliness' Legacy”
“Say It Right” (Nelly Furtado cover)
“Envy World”
“The Portrait” (feat. Jennie Nord - Ultimate Fate, Santi Suarez - Sphinx, Bruno Pardini)

Album stream:

“Suicidal Angel” video:

“Starved Of Guidance” video:

“Broken Esteem” video:

“Connected/Condemned” video: