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Carl Dixon, the lead singer of the Guess Who, is
being kept in an induced coma to help his body
recover from the serious injuries he sustained in a
head-on collision in Australia
“Carl has a very long road ahead of him but he is
strong and he is a fighter,” his wife Betty Ujvari
says on the singer’s official website. “He has the
love of his two girls, his wife, a wonderful family
and the greatest friends and fans that any man could
ask for.”
The Dixons live in West Guilford but last fall, when
12-year-old Lauren got a starring role in the
television series called The Saddle Club, Lauren and
her mother moved to Australia for eight months.
Carl was visiting them when the accident occurred on
Monday night.
“Carl has a very long road ahead of him but he is
strong and he is a fighter."He had been recording a
song he had written for the show and was driving
back to the family’s temporary base in Daylesford,
close to the ranch where the series is being filmed.
It took emergency personnel 90 minutes to extract
him from the crash and he was airlifted to one of
the top hospitals in Melbourne.
He suffered two broken femurs, a broken arm, and a
break in the bone that protects one of his eyes. He
was also badly bruised.
“He’s in a great deal of pain so keeping him in an
induced coma will help him mend,” says Mike Jaycock,
president of Canoe FM, where Dixon is the volunteer
music director. “It’s very serious but not
life-threatening. He will survive but it’s
devastating.”
Jaycock says the production company in charge of The
Saddle Club has been extraordinarily good to the
family in the wake of the accident. It paid to fly
Dixon’s 15-year-old daughter Carlin to Australia on
Tuesday, changed the filming schedule to allow
Lauren to join her mother and sister at her father’s
bedside, and rented an apartment in Melbourne for
the family.
Everyone at Canoe FM was devastated by the news.
“It’s a huge hurt to us,” says Jaycock. “We care
about him not because of what he is [a rock singer]
but what he does. It doesn’t matter where he is
[when he’s touring with the Guess Who] he’s in touch
with us on almost daily basis. This isn’t a hobby
for him, it’s an affection.”
As well as being the station’s music director, Dixon
helped each of his daughters host a program for the
station. He has donated hours of his time to update
and organize the station’s music files.
The station has been in contact with his wife Betty.
“He’s the rock star and she’s the rock,” station co-ordinator
Sue Black says of the strength which Betty has
exhibited during this family crisis.
On www.carldixon.com, Betty writes, “Keep your
positive thoughts flowing; keep sending your
messages. If you haven’t hugged and told someone you
love that you do – then please do so. Life is
precious.”
People who want to send messages to Carl can do so
through his Website.
The station has also been saddened by the deaths of
two of its volunteers’ family members. Roxanne Casey
lost her mother and step-father in the span of 12
hours on the weekend. Both had been suffering from
cancer. A few days later, her husband Dennis’s
father, Earle Casey, passed away at Highland Wood.
He was a World War II vet who survived 11 days on a
life raft after his plane was shot down.
Earle’s funeral is this Sunday at 2 p.m. at the
Haliburton United Church.
“It’s been a tough week for us all,” says Jaycock,
who joins everyone at the station in extending his
sympathy to the Casey family.
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