DAMAGEPLAN Singer Yelled 'Call 9-1-1' Before Jumping Off Stage

December 10, 2004

Steve Woodward of The Oregonian reports that at 3:45 a.m. Thursday, the call Alan Lachman had been hoping for all night finally came.

His son called to say he was alive and unhurt.

The previous evening, Lachman and his wife, Margie, had only a phone message left by the girlfriend of their 34-year-old son, Patrick Lachman, the lead singer in the heavy-metal band DAMAGEPLAN.

Some crazy guy, she said, had jumped the stage during a concert in Columbus, Ohio, and started shooting. Patrick was OK.

"I guess you'd call it a parent's worst nightmare but he came out of it," said Alan Lachman, a retired Beaverton dermatologist.

The gunman killed the band's lead guitarist, "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, and three others in the crowd before a police officer shot the gunman dead. Two others were injured in the shootings, including the band's manager.

"He sounded very calm on the phone," Alan Lachman said of his son, "but I'm sure the shock will set in later."

His son told him the band had just started to play, when the shooting started. Patrick yelled, "Call 9-1-1" into his microphone, then jumped off the stage into the crowd.

"He realized there was nothing he could do," Alan Lachman said, noting that Patrick is a target shooter and former martial arts instructor.

"He's a good, tough, husky guy," said the elder Lachman.

Alan Lachman said his son called again Thursday from a Columbus hospital, where the band's [assistant] manager was in critical condition from a gunshot wound. The manager was expected to recover.

The elder Lachman and his wife, Margie Lachman, first met Abbott and his brother, Vinnie Paul Abbott, last November during the band's concert at the Roseland Theater. They saw Darrell Abbott again only two weeks ago, when DAMAGEPLAN played in Portland at the Bossanova Ballroom.

The band had reserved the couple a table on the top floor overlooking the stage. Before the show began, Darrell and Patrick ran up the stairs to the table, where Darrell gave them both hugs and said, "Hey, Mom and Dad, now I can go play," Alan Lachman remembers. Read more.

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