GOODBYE TO GRAVITY Drummer Dies; Death Toll From Bucharest Nightclub Fire Now At 45

GOODBYE TO GRAVITY drummer Bogdan Lavinius died earlier today (Sunday, November 8) while he was being transported to a hospital in Zurich, Switzerland by plane, increasing the death toll of the October 30 Bucharest nightclub fire to 45. GOODBYE TO GRAVITY guitarists Vlad Telea and Mihai Alexandru were among the 26 people who were killed the day of the fire, while singer Andrei Galut and bass player Alex Pascu were hospitalized with burns and injuries from smoke inhalation. Galut has already been transferred to a treatment center in the Netherlands, while Pascu's family was trying to get him to a hospital abroad earlier today.

Lavinius suffered suffered a cardiac arrest during the flight to Switzerland, and the medical staff performed resuscitation manoeuvres on him for 70 minutes.

At the time of the drummer's death, the plane transporting him was on its way back to Romania because his condition had worsened.

"At the request of the Interior Ministry's Department for Emergency Situations, a Cessna Citation aircraft of the General Inspectorate of Aviation, with special medical equipment for the air transport of victims, left on Sunday, around [4:20 p.m.] to Zurich, Switzerland, on an humanitarian emergency mission, for the transfer of one patient injured in the fire at Colectiv club," the Interior Ministry said in a press release.

95 people injured in the fire are still being treated in various Bucharest-area hospitals, with 36 in critical and serious condition and 57 in stable condition.

The fire reportedly started after GOODBYE TO GRAVITY's pyrotechnical show went awry, causing the ceiling and a pillar to catch alight and producing heavy smoke.

Media reported that clubgoers initially thought the flames were part of the show and did not immediately react.

The concert was supposed to be a record-release party for GOODBYE TO GRAVITY's new album, "Mantras Of War".

The Station nightclub fire in that killed 100 people in West Warwick, Rhode Island, in 2003 during a GREAT WHITE concert was also blamed on pyrotechnics igniting foam used for soundproofing.

GOODBYE TO GRAVITY started as an unexpected mixture of former members from the heavy metal band THUNDERSTORM (which in their 10-plus years of activity opened for such heavyweights such as JUDAS PRIEST, MANOWAR, HELLOWEEN, RAGE and EVERGREY) and the winner of the 2008 national TV show "Megastar" (Romanian "American Idol" equivalent).