Back in 2004 the Dave Matthews band was involved in a truly horrific incident
involving a tour bus, human waste, and a poor passenger boat of tourists.
What happened? Stay tuned for the full story.
According to the Chicago Tribune Dave Matthews Band was set to play two nights in East Troy
Wisconsin and the band had rented out five tour buses. The incident occurred between
both nights and the bus involved was being used by violinist Boyd Tinsley.
During the spring and summer months the Chicago Architecture foundation offers boat trips along
the chicago River. The tour boats as you'll soon learn unfortunately have open-roof seating.
A lot of bridges around Chicago feature riveted or anti-slip grating,
and from a maintenance and design perspective riveted bridge decks are desirable for a few
reasons because rain and snow can mostly pass through it removing the need to for expensive and
complicated drainage systems and it can also help reduce the build up on the bridge deck as well.
Bus driver Stefan Wohl crossed the Kinzie Street Bridge and emptied the contents of
his bus' septic tank, which was full at the time containing 800 pounds of human waste.
Unfortunately crossing under the bridge at the very same time was the chicago
architecture foundation boat. Within seconds ⅔ of the passengers were soaked in human waste.
There were around 100 passengers on the boat that day. And buses can’t just dump their septic tanks
where they want, there are pre-approved sites where they have to dispose of their contents.
So what the bus driver did was highly illegal that day.
Following the incident the boat returned back to the Navy Pier and all the passengers were
given full refunds. On the tour boat that day included people who had disabilities, the elderly,
a newborn child, a pregnant women and an infant. And five of the passengers
went to a local hospital as a precaution. The Chicago police soon got involved and a
day after the incident happened a witness came forward who recorded the bus’ license plate
came forward to the police. Once the police ran the plates it was registered to bus driver
named Jerry Fitzpatrick who also drove for the Dave Matthews band. The band immediately denied
any responsibility claiming all of their buses were accounted for on the day of the incident
claiming they were all parked at the band’s hotel. The police were able to obtain the security
tapes from a nearby gym which caught the bus passing the bridge at the time of the incident.
Two weeks after the incident took place Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a lawsuit
of $70,000 against Stefan Wohl, for illegally dumping the waste.. Wohl denied the charges and
was even backed up by the band at the time. But on August 25th the mayor of chicago at the time
Richard M Daley held a press conference in which the tapes were released to the media and public.
By March of 2005 Wohl plead guilty to the charges which included reckless conduct and discharging
contaminants to cause water pollution. Wohl would be required to pay $10K to a local environmental
group called The Friends of the Chicago River. He was also sentenced to a year and a half of
probation in addition to 150 hours of community service. The Dave Matthews band got hit pretty
hard as well. They paid $200K to the state of illinois as part of the settlement and donated
another 50K to the friends of the chicago river group The band also was also required to keep
written records of where and when they dumped the contents of their septic tanks in the future..
So what happened to the passengers? Well they thankfully didn’t seem to suffer any long term
health impacts, but they saw and opportunity and they took that opportunity and a number of them
filed lawsuits against Dave Matthews band. Not only that, but the boat company mercury skyline
yacht charters also filed a lawsuit against the band claiming the incident hurt their business
No passengers suffered any long-lasting health effects from the exposure.
Although the details of whatever settlement occurred as a result of that settlement is not
known, in 2015, in fact, someone posted a sign at the scene of the crime to honor the terrible
events of that day.That does it for today's video guys thanks for watching. Be sure to hit the like
button and subsribe and we'll see you again tomorrow on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.