n March 13, 2015, the young musician, Kevin Chambers’ life was changed forever.
Scheduled to perform at about 7 p.m. at the annual 24-hour music festival on that day in March, Chambers was preparing in the WMCX studio, the University’s radio station. Just before he was about to go on-air for his solo performance, Chambers became ill and needed medical attention.
“I played my set, everything was normal, he was on top of it,” David Rothschild said in a press release, who is a friend of Chambers and a fellow musician. “He even ripped off this beautiful piano solo when I dropped my harmonica.”
The press release said that afterward, David went off to do an interview while Chambers set up for his slot. However, this is when things went awry. The paramedics came and brought him to the hospital. Chambers’ sudden illness at the studio was actually the symptoms of something more severe.
Chambers’ sister Meg Steedle was the first to be called and rushed over to the hospital, where she found her brother in the intensive care unit (ICU). “He had a breathing tube in, so his mouth was open, his eyes were half-open and rolled back, and I remember just trying not to cry because I was so conscious that I wanted my energy to be hopeful,” Steedle said.
According to a press release, Chambers experienced an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) in the left temporal lobe of his brain. A press release said, “An AVM is a congenital defect in less than one percent of the population, in which high-pressure arteries, rather than passing through a bed of small capillaries, connect directly into low-pressure veins, which are ill equipped to handle the pressure. It’s only a matter of time before this creates a bulge in the vessel walls, which can rupture, often with fatal results. For KC (Chambers), this tangled mass of weakened blood vessels had burst open and the bleeding was shutting down critical areas of his brain.”
After various extensive surgeries and rehabilitation visits, Chambers has made a full recovery. On Friday, Jan. 27, he reappeared to WMCX and showed the world the music he created after this event took place.
“My perspective has changed in that I know how short life can be,” Chambers said in a press release. “You don’t have an endless amount of time. I just want to keep working on new music and write about what everyone meant to me during that time.”
“When Kevin became sick, I honestly did not know what was going on. I just knew that something wasn’t right,” said Aaron Furgason, Chair of the Department of Communication and WMCX’s Advisor. “Monmouth University’s police were on the scene quickly, and the paramedics arrived a few minutes later. Because Kevin wasn’t an MU student, I had no idea on an outcome until he reached out to our General Manager, Hunter Farman with his story.”
Hunter Farman, senior communication student and WMCX’s general manager, interviewed Chambers on Friday. They spoke for over 30 minutes about the night of his incident, his recovery process, and music that he has created since then.
“The interview went really well!” Farman said. “We were really thankful that Kevin was able to come back in. He’s incredibly lucky, and it was almost surreal to be talking with him. We’ve posted it on our SoundCloud account before we played it on air, and the early feedback to it has been positive so far.”
Farman added that Chambers seemed to be excited to be back. “We were able to listen to a couple of tracks off his EP “Starting Over” together, and then we talked about stories behind the songs. He seemed to be taking everything in, and I imagine that it was a very emotional experience for him. He was definitely happy to share his story and talk about the music.”
“I’m happy to see and hear that Kevin has made a full recovery and is out again playing music,” Furgason added. “Amazing story with a happy ending!”
image taken from www.kevinchambers.bandcamp.com
