Tracy Morgan is sharing the gory details of her fatal car accident with a Walmart truck with friends.
Morgan, 57, spoke with Saturday Night Live’s Marcello Hernandez on the Wednesday, June 10, episode of Variety & CNN’s Actors on Actors. During the conversation, Morgan recalled having an accident with his friend Ardie Fuqua and the late James McNair, who died in the accident.
Back in 2014, Morgan was riding down the New Jersey Turnpike in a limousine with Fuqua and McNair (who also went by the stage name Jimmy Mack) after finishing a comedy show.
“We were playing a show together in Delaware that night, and we got hit by a truck that was going 110 miles an hour with 85,000 pounds of frozen food in the back,” Morgan recalled. “And my friend Jimmy Mack – God bless him – had his neck badly broken and his face on his back.”
The topic of the accident came up after Hernandez, 28, said he was friends with Fuqua, 55, a longtime friend of Morgan’s. Morgan said Standup was one of the passengers in the limousine crash and suffered serious injuries.
“That’s my guy. He was in the accident with me. He was in a coma for 20 days,” Morgan said of Fuqua. “I was there for 10 days.”
Hernandez responded, “I speak on behalf of all of us when I say we are very happy and very blessed to have you here.”
Morgan expressed his gratitude for Hernandez’s sentiments and revealed that SNL director Lorne Michaels contacted Morgan’s ex-wife Sabina to check on his condition following the accident. (Morgan and Sabrina were high school sweethearts and were married from 1987 to 2009. Sabrina passed away in 2016 after a battle with cancer.)
“Lorne must have called my ex-wife about a thousand times to see if I had come out of the coma,” he recalled.
Morgan was not only placed in a medically induced coma at the time of the incident, but suffered multiple injuries including a shattered femur, a broken nose, a traumatic brain injury and several broken ribs. After Morgan woke up, the comedian underwent months of physical therapy and rehabilitation so he could learn how to walk and talk again.
The truck driver has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges. An investigation conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board found that the driver had been on the road for 13 and a half hours. (The legal working hours for truck drivers is 14 hours.)
Morgan ultimately sued Walmart for negligence. The parties settled the lawsuit for an undisclosed amount in 2015. The Saturday Night Live alum hinted Wednesday that he was paid a lot of money.
“You know why we do comedy? It’s a necessity. But once you make a comedy, you’re inevitably going to be surrounded by people who need to do this. Just because you make a comedy, it might not mean you don’t have bills to pay. But they have bills to pay, so it has to be funny,” he said. “I got hit by a Walmart truck, so with the money I got, I wouldn’t have to do this. But I have people around me who need to do this, and I love it.”
