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Jeff Hanneman will not be joining Slayer on this upcoming tour, due to a spider bite.
He has been forced to pull out as he is sick with flesh-eating disease necrotizing fasciitis, which he contracted after being bitten by the critter.
The bite was extremely serious, with the guitarist almost losing his arm and falling into a coma following the bite and since had many operations in order to remove the dying tissue from his arms. Hanneman talked about the moment he knew something was wrong, "The arm was real hot. I got to the emergency room, and thank God the nurse knew straight away what it was. By chance, although it's pretty rare, she had seen a case a little while before. At that point, I was an hour away from death".
"Unbelievably, the doctor was a Slayer fan and the first thing he said to me was: 'First I am going to save your life. Then I am going to save your arm. Then I am going to save your career."
The rest of the band has written an open letter to his fans stating, "It's been about a year since he got out of the hospital, and since then, he had to learn to walk again, he's had several painful skin grafts, he's been in rehab doing exercises to regain the strength in his arm."
"We were all excited when he joined us onstage for the encore a year ago at the Big Four show at Coachella. Since then, we've given him all the time and support he's needed to continue his rehab so he can come back to the band fully recovered and able to deliver the kind of shows we all want him to”.
Hanneman's spot on tour will be filled by Exodus’ Gary Holt, whilst the band continues to hit venues across Europe this summer.
