"Dear friends,

The last two weeks have been an extremely hard time for us and we hope that you understand how difficult it has been for us to come out with an update on Georg's condition. There have been days when the situation has appeared to be very dark, as well as days bringing good news and glimpses of hope. Georg's condition is now somewhat stable, but still extremely severe and the risk of different complications is still evident. The following part will give you more information on what actually happened and how things have moved on since then.

The accident took place two weeks ago, on the night between Thursday and Friday (27.-28.10.) when, for a reason still unknown, Georg's car swerved off the highway, crashing through an elk-fence before coming to a halt 60 meters farther ahead. The first reports on the accident did not come in before early Friday morning and the first police patrol was at the scene around 8 am. They, however, did not notice the unconscious Georg who was lying on the ground approximately 5 meters from the vehicle. Neither did the following patrol which came to the scene later in the afternoon to add some more police tape in the fence as a signal to the motorists passing by that the police had already been there. Georg was reported missing on Friday afternoon. It was not before 6 pm Georg's brother found him at the scene of the accident and called the emergency number. When Georg was lifted up from the ground his heart stopped beating. At that point he had been lying unconscious on the icy ground for some 12 hours minimum, and his body temperature had gone down to 20.1 °C. No other persons were involved in the accident.

Georg was rushed to Hämeenlinna Central Hospital and later in the night transferred to the intensive care unit at Meilahti Hospital in Helsinki. During this time the nursing staff kept his heart beating by hand for well over four hours. At Meilahti Hospital he was connected to a heart-lung machine and heart operation was started immediately.

During the last two weeks Georg has gone through several operations on his heart, abdomen, feet etc. His body temperature has been raised slowly up towards normal, which has brought up some problems with his right leg not heating up properly due to bad frostbites. He has shown marks of consciousness throughout last week, and has been awake for short periods during the last days, but is still kept under anaesthesia and heavy narcosis most of the time. His heart is now somewhat working on its own, but his breathing is still controlled by a respirator, and there are also problems with his kidneys. Apart from a few broken ribs and a minor fracture in his jaw, the crash did not cause notable external damage. Recent scans have not shown any signs of brain damage either, but at this stage that is still far too early to speculate on.

We would like to express our gratitude for all the kind words and thoughts you have posted in our guestbook. Your concern really means a lot to us and has given both us and Georg's family a lot of strenght during these hard two weeks. We, together with Georg's family, wish that you continue posting your thoughts and greetings in our guestbook or on our forum, as all your posts have been, and will be in the future as well, forwarded to the hospital staff who are reading your greetings directly for Georg. We would also like to thank you all for the extremely tactful manner in which you have received these heavy news not declining to any level of rumours or speculations. We will keep you posted on how things move on again as soon as there is something new to tell.


Yours,

The members of Turisas"

Hope he's getting better.

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I'm not a huge fan of Turisas at all but that really isn't cool hope he get's well

oh my god, first i've heard of this. i love Turisas! Hope he's gets through this!

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Thats a severly fucked up situation!
Damn, Im not too big on Thurisaz, but I hope he gets well.
And I kinda feel stupid for missing them on Wacken

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how the fuck did they not see him?!?!

damn hope he gets well, turisas is a kickass band im gonna listen to them right now

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yeah i love turisas, what a shame. people have recovered from worse....

this is slightly old news old man but the update itself isnt

keep us posted or i will

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Metal magic man, he'll come through

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It's pretty old news, but anyway:

"Georg Laakso, the guitarist of Turisas, who was badly injured in a severe car-accident in October 2005 has left the band.

"Nearly nine months has passed since the accident took place, and after six years in the band, I have now come to the point where I am forced to leave Turisas.

I have been diagnosed with spinal cord injury which has an effect on all the functions in my body. In practice it means that nothing from my chest and below is working properly or at all, and I am now tied to a wheelchair - most likely for the rest of my life. Unfortunately my fingers are not working either and it is very unlikely that I will be able to play the guitar - or any instrument for that matter - ever again. To avoid sounding too gloomy I would like to point out that considering the circumstances I should have been dead many times already. Thanks to hard rehabilitation, zest for life and persistency I have already made some progress and I am slowly re-learning the basics of life. I have a hard battle of my own ahead of myself, but battles are meant to be won.

I would like to thank all of you for the support you have given me during these hard months. All the letters, cards and greetings have gladden my heart enourmously. A big thank you to everyone of you! I would have wanted to inform you much sooner, but my constitution and the unclarity in things have made it impossible for me to give any kind of a reasonable statement earlier than now. I know that also this is still pretty vague, but I am hoping to be able to give you more information when things first come clear to myself. There is no such thing as giving up!"

Turisas is not looking for a replacing guitarist at the moment, but will continue doing all upcoming shows with only one guitarist as the band has already done since the accident took place. The band is currently concentrating on the work for a new album with a release tentatively scheduled for first early 2007."

This sucks.

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That's a damn shame...Turisas are fantastic.

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that does suck, poor georg...never playing again...

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Fuck man, I have never heard of this band but just reading that makes me never want to complain about anything ever again. I mean really, if something goes wrong at school/work/home/spouse it cannot possibly compare to being tied to a wheelchair and never being able to play an instrument again. Puts everything in a perspective.

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Dude, you have to check these guys out, immediately.

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Yeah i looked them up on metal-archives.com and it said they were folk/symphonic metal. They looked like real vikings........looks like my power metal phase craze is gonna have to share with a new folk metal one.

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I like Turisas. Good viking style metal. That really sucks about the accident and not being able to play any instrument. Thank god he's alive though.

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