the commercial release of Innervisions, Wonder played a concert in Greenville, South Carolina. Afterward, he was asleep in the front seat of a car as his friend, John Harris, snaked along a road just outside Durham, North Carolina, behind a truck loaded high with logs. Suddenly, the trucker jammed on his brakes, and the two vehicles collided. Logs went flying, and one smashed through the windshield of Wonder's car and hit him in the forehead. He was bloody and unconscious when he was pulled from the wrecked car and lay in a coma caused by severe brain contusion for ten days. It was Wonder's friend and tour director Ira Tucker who first elicited some response from him: When Wonder regained consciousness, he discovered that he had lost his sense of smell (which he later largely recovered), and he was deeply afraid that he might have lost his musical abilities, too. Tucker said: Wonder's climb back to health was long and slow. He had to take medication for a year, tired easily, and suffered severe headaches. The crash also changed his way of thinking, as his deep faith and spiritual vision made him doubt that it was "an accident". He stated: "You can never change anything that has already happened. Everything is the way it's supposed to be...Everything that ever happened to me is the way it is supposed to have been." In an interview with The New York Times, Wonder commented that "the accident opened my ears up to many things around me. Naturally, life is just more important to me now...and what I do with my life." He also said: Confirming Wonder's belief in destiny, Michael Sembello, Wonder's lead guitarist at the time, said: Before the crash, Wonder had been scheduled to do a five-week, 20-city tour in March and April 1974. It was postponed, with the exception of one date in Madison Square Garden in late March. That concert began with Wonder pointing to his scarred forehead, looking up, grinning, and giving "thanks to God that I'm alive." 21,000 people in the crowd roared with applause, and, as a Post critic noted, "it was hard not to be thrilled." Critical reception As with both Music of My Mind and Talking Book from the previous year, Innervisions was received warmly by music critics, many of whom praised Wonder's versatile musical skills. Billboard wrote that "the liner credits Stevie with