A Minnesota family is trying to bring a man home after he died behind the wheel of a tour bus that crossed three lanes of Interstate 25 and rolled near Cheyenne last week.
The family of David Rollingcloud Jackson, 50, says an autopsy determined he had already died from a medical emergency before the vehicle crashed.
Danni Wong, Jackson's daughter-in-law, wrote on social media that Jackson was driving band members north on I-25 when he suffered a sudden medical emergency around 2:20 a.m. near milepost 7.6 in Laramie County.
The vehicle crossed three lanes of traffic before rolling, she wrote.
The family still doesn't know exactly what medical event killed him, Wong wrote.
She wrote that the family also learned that Jackson had atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, a condition they didn't know he had before the crash. She also said Jackson had epilepsy.
"When paramedics arrived at the scene, he was pronounced dead on arrival," she wrote.
Wyoming Highway Patrol lists a possible medical condition as a contributing factor.
On Tuesday, WHP spokesman Aaron Brown told Cowboy State Daily the investigation is not concluded.
Brown said Jackson was driving a 2024 Freightliner M2 and no other vehicles were involved.
Wyoming's fatal crash summary lists 10 people in the vehicle, including Jackson. Four passengers were injured and five were not. Jackson was the only person killed.
'Terrifying Experience'
Jackson was driving for Sawyer Hill, an Arkansas rock singer whose “Everybody’s Home, Nobody’s Happy” tour had played a sold-out show at the Bluebird Theater in Denver on Oct. 13.
The tour’s next scheduled stop was Metro Music Hall in Salt Lake City on Oct. 14, the same day Jackson died in the early-morning crash near Cheyenne.
Hill announced on Tuesday that they will postpone all remaining tour dates.
"It was a terrifying experience for everyone on board, myself included, and we are devastated to share that our driver lost his life. Several members of our band and crew were also injured," he said.
Gabe Largaespada, who was aboard the vehicle, described the crash as a “terrible accident” and wrote, “The 9 of us that survived the horrible night are so extremely lucky that we didn’t suffer anything worse than the injuries that we have."
Largaespada said he was taken by ambulance with a roughly 6-inch laceration along his hairline and a hematoma on his forehead, but did not suffer a concussion. He said he is now recovering at home and the swelling has subsided.
He also thanked police, the coroner, emergency room doctors and nurses and the other members of the touring party who helped after the crash.
“I LOVE YOU ALL, TELL YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY YOU LOVE THEM, ENJOY THE FLOWERS AND THE SUNSHINE!” he wrote.
Bringing David Home
"He was a huge part of the music industry, a world he loved and was deeply connected to," Wong wrote.
His work took him across the country and introduced him to people throughout the music business, she said.
"We are trying to bring David home to Minnesota, give him the celebration he deserves, and allow the people who love him to come together to grieve, share memories, and celebrate the life he lived," Wong wrote.
Jackson's obituary says he was a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe.
He spent much of his life in the music industry, working as a tour manager, band manager and tour bus driver.
"His passion for his work took him across the country, where he built lasting friendships and connections along the way," his obituary says.
The road, it adds, "was a familiar part of his life."
Jackson was also heavily involved in the recovery community. His obituary says his own experience with recovery gave him an understanding of the struggles other people faced and that he used those experiences to help others.
Jackson is survived by his mother, five children and three grandchildren.
A wake is scheduled for Monday at the Inger Community Center in Minnesota, followed by a celebration of life there Tuesday morning.
'Still Driving Through The Night'
Nine days before his death, Jackson wrote publicly about what it meant to spend his life on the road with touring musicians.
"Sometimes tour life isn't all glitz and glamour," he began an Oct. 5 Facebook post.
Jackson wrote that the band he was then working for had recently continued into Canada without him after a border officer wouldn't allow him to enter the country.
Rather than leave him behind, Jackson said, the band and its tour manager got him a rental car so he could reconnect with them in Detroit after their Canadian shows.
The experience brought back memories of much harder moments on the road.
Jackson said he nearly died Feb. 19, 2025, when a box truck he was driving hit black ice and rolled. He wrote that he woke up not knowing who he was, where he was or what had happened. He was later hospitalized after developing dizziness and slurred speech.
He said the crash left him with a permanent injury.
Still, Jackson went back on the road.
"Because music isn't just a way to make a living for me," he wrote. "Music is a way of life."
He described himself as older, grayer and carrying more scars than when he started, but still doing the work.
"Still rolling. Still setting up. Still tearing down. Still driving through the night," Jackson wrote.
About a week later, Jackson was driving through Wyoming in the middle of the night when he died.
Wong launched an online fundraiser Sunday to help return his body from Wyoming to Minnesota and pay for funeral expenses.
Medical Emergencies
Medical emergencies are an uncommon cause of crashes, but they're not unheard of on Wyoming roads.
Wyoming's fatal-crash database lists 28 fatal crashes from 2022 through 2026 in which a "Possible Medical Condition" was identified as a contributing factor.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration analyzed crashes in its National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey and found medical emergencies precipitated crashes for about 1.3% of the drivers studied.
Of the medical emergencies identified, seizures accounted for 35%, followed by blackouts at 29%, diabetic reactions at 20% and heart attacks at 11%.
The study also found a pattern in what happened after a driver became incapacitated.
Most crashes precipitated by a medical emergency involved only one vehicle, according to NHTSA, and the vehicle typically departed the roadway before crashing.
The review found that fatal crashes stemming from cardiac arrests and other illnesses account for less than 1% of crashes.
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
