Maybe I am just a big wuss or maybe I’m just not man enough to want to go hurtling down the straight away of a circle track into a wall of burning boards, but I have never had one iota of desire to be a stuntman. As kids I had friends that would jump off stuff, jump over stuff, and generally put themselves in harm’s way for what amounted to small amounts of adulation and the risk of big amounts of pain. Guys like that grow up to the be dude in this video who is on the receiving end of one of the most painful looking stunt fails I have ever seen.
Sure, things start out looking pretty good. Dressed in a fire suit and holding onto the hood of a Jeep, looking like a cat someone is trying to throw into the tub, our hero is ready to meet the flaming wall head on…literally. Even blasting through the fire seems to go OK and then the worm turns. Somehow our hero falls off the hood of the Jeep and the ace behind the wheel did not get the memo stating that the loss of said stuntman should result in immediate and hard braking. Instead the guy just kind of rolls on and OVER THE STUNTMAN. The Jeep gets the poor bastard with both axles before the stuntman pops up and scampers to safety, ditching his gloves and helmet along the way.
The crowd lets out the types of shocked gasps one would expect when seeing someone run over in front of them and then they kind of awkwardly clap for the guy as he walks off into the sunset with the medical and safety personnel. The fact the dude is walking under his own power is stunning to us and perhaps proof that someone as indestructible as this has chosen the right line of work.
He’s up and walking from the adrenaline like an animal that was just hit but I’m sure there’s broken bones and other damage and the pain is soaking in. Better to have been put on a backboard and carried away.
I don’t actually care for amateur-hour stunt shows after having seen one go bad and walked out on another that was about to.
Agree with Loren on the Adrenaline thing – I once saw a woman run through the traffic at the lights only to get cleaned up by an MG speeding in the turn lane. Horrible..but the worst bit was she did the same thing, got straight up and started to run, but her broken leg then collapsed underneath her… nightmarish thing to watch, I was stopped opposite at the lights in a cab I was driving with 4 old ladies as passengers who all started crying….