What Star Wars actor saved lives when he landed his dying aircraft? And why does Kanye West
say an accident helped shape his career? These celebrities had a brush with death,
and though they survived, it changed their lives forever.
On December 4, 1988, Gary Busey was thrown from his motorcycle while joyriding in West
Hollywood. The actor was not wearing a helmet, and he was swiftly rushed to the hospital,
where he claims he died briefly while undergoing emergency surgery.
"Split my skull up to here, knocked a hole in it that big."
Thankfully, he found a way back to this side, and has continued his career in the decades since.
The accident was a life-changing moment for a couple of reasons. First,
the resulting head injuries meant he had to relearn how to walk and speak again.
When asked how he feels about the experience now, Busey told The Guardian,
In 1990, Latin American singer Gloria Estefan was on top of the world following a string
of '80s hits. But in March of that year, the singer was involved in a horrific crash when a
semi-truck slipped on a wintery Pennsylvania highway and slammed into her tour bus.
"I open my eyes and I'm on the floor of the bus. And I am looking around, and it is mayhem."
Recovery was brutal — Estefan was in a wheelchair for a good bit afterward,
recovering from a broken back — but she claims it changed her life for the better.
Before the accident, she didn't take her spirituality too seriously. She told People,
In 1994, Poison frontman Bret Michaels slammed his
Ferrari into a telephone pole, breaking several bones. He'd been bar hopping before getting behind
the wheel, and he told the Houston Press that he had been driving fast and lost control of his car.
The incident was a sobering experience for Michaels, who said,
He recovered in time to reach reality TV glory with Rock of Love with Bret Michaels.
For millions of people around the world, Christopher Reeve was Superman. He starred
in the critically acclaimed movie in 1978, which got rave reviews from critics. He reprised the
role several times before hanging up the cape and boots after 1987's Superman IV:
The Quest for Peace. By the 1990s, Reeve was looking for new opportunities to
showcase his talent and deepen his filmography with more serious work.
But fate had other plans. On May 27, 1995, Reeve was thrown from a horse he'd been riding
on and tragically paralyzed from the neck down after "shattering" two bones in his spine. It
was initially unclear if he would survive. His website says his injuries were so serious that
his own mother even discussed pulling him off life support with his medical team to alleviate his
suffering. Reeve did eventually pull through, but his career in Hollywood was all but over, and he
would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, unable to even turn his head. It was a horrifying
turn of events for an actor barely 42 years old, looking forward to a new phase in his career.
But Reeve turned the tragedy into something positive. He
formed the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation for victims of paralysis,
alongside his wife, who stayed by his side through what recovery there was.
"And any one of us could get hurt at any moment."
These days, you either know Kanye "Ye" West because of his music or the endless
controversies. But as the Netflix documentary Jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy points out,
he almost never got the opportunity to accomplish anything. That's because,
in 2002, he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed violently into an oncoming
vehicle. The other driver broke both legs, and West's jaw was broken in three places,
necessitating emergency surgery, metal plates, and having his jaw wired shut for weeks.
He told MTV months later,
Weirdly, West has since claimed that the accident helped his career. In a
2014 sit down with Interview Magazine, he said,
"I looked at this accident as God saying, 'I'm about to hand you the world.'"
That album, released in 2004, would win the Grammy for Best Rap Album.
Sometimes actors risk life and limb by waiving their right to a stunt double.
Just ask Charlize Theron, who did her own stunts for 2005's Aeon Flux. While
shooting a fight scene, she misstepped attempting to perform some acrobatics
in platform shoes and landed hard on her neck. Filming was halted for weeks while
she recovered from an injury that was almost much, much worse. She later told News.com,
Although she recovered, she dealt with chronic pain for years. Luckily,
the worst of it appears to be behind her.
In August 2021, Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker got on a plane with his now-wife,
Kourtney Kardashian. It doesn't sound like a very big deal. After all,
a world-famous and very in-demand musician has to tour, right?
Thing is, getting on an aircraft was something of a triumph for Barker, who'd avoided planes
for years following a terrifying and deadly plane crash in 2008. According to CBS,
under-inflated tires caused a Learjet 60 plane, carrying Barker and several other passengers,
to crash on the runway while attempting to take off. The plane burst into flames,
killing several passengers and wounding Barker.
"It caught fire. We were in the air and then we came down,
in the air and came down, and then finally we hit an embankment."
The following year, People said Barker's good friend and fellow passenger Adam Goldstein,
more commonly known as DJ AM, died in New York. Since Goldstein was the only other person to
make it off that plane, that leaves Barker as the sole living survivor of the crash.
Near-death experiences aren't something people get over very easily. In 2014,
30 Rock star Tracy Morgan was involved in a fiery, lethal car accident involving multiple
vehicles. The wreck killed his long-time friend and mentor, 62-year-old Uncle Jimmy Mack, and sent
Morgan to the hospital in critical condition. According to news media, the accident occurred
when a Walmart truck smashed into a limousine Morgan was in on the New Jersey Turnpike.
For five months, Morgan was largely bedridden,
and confined to a wheelchair when he wasn't. He later told Rolling Stone,
On the Today Show, he said that he initially didn't remember the ordeal, but that hospital
staff kept him informed as he recovered in those first days after the accident, saying,
"It was surreal. They remember everything. I had traumatic brain damage, so I don't
remember anything, and they would tell me everything that happened."
"When I first came out of the coma, I was a mess."
When the memories flooded back, it was traumatic, he said, adding,
Harrison Ford doesn't just pretend to know his way around planes and
spaceships in the movies – the star has been flying for years.
"You know how to fly, don't you?" "No, do you?"
And he's not just flying recreationally,
either — the article says he's flown real-life wilderness rescues that have saved lives.
But in 2015, he was the one in need of help. The Associated Press says that
the then-72-year-old A-lister was injured after crash landing on a California golf course. But
it wasn't incompetence that caused the wreck. Quite the opposite, actually — witnesses and
aviation vets commended Ford for landing in open ground, even roughly, rather than trying to limp
his dying aircraft back to the runway and risk crashing into a populated area. One witness aid,
"You ever have a flying dream? I have."
AP said his condition was "fair-to-moderate" as he
was taken to the hospital. But although he recovered fully, he may have been in
worse shape than he initially let on. Ford recalled his injuries to Ellen:
Some people are just born lucky. When you see just how many times
Justin Theroux has escaped death, you'll get what we mean. On an episode of Ellen,
Justin Theroux talked about his many injuries while filming The Leftovers, saying,
In another episode, he describes a scooter accident, saying,
He slammed on the brakes and flew sideways off the bike, smashing his head on the ground.
And that wasn't even the worst thing he went through. On yet another Ellen episode,
he describes an earlier incident when he got creamed by a van while
skateboarding and woke up with amnesia. He told Ellen,
Luckily it wore off, and he recovered fully.
Actress and model Brooke Shields was just trying to stay in shape when she tumbled
off a balance board and instantly knew something was wrong. She told People,
She had a broken femur, and she said she was genuinely
afraid she was paralyzed and would never walk again. In the hospital,
Shields got two metal rods in her leg. But then her injured bone popped out again, necessitating
a second surgery involving five more rods and a metal plate to hold everything in place.
"I realized what a fighter I am."
On February 21, 2021, Shields posted a video to Instagram of herself walking slowly,
in a hospital gown, with the use of crutches. The caption read,
Just after New Year 2023, Hawkeye star Jeremy Renner was severely
injured in Nevada when his own snow plow ran over him. Renner,
who had been trying to help a relative who was stuck in the snow, was flown to
a nearby hospital and remained in "critical but stable condition" even after several surgeries.
Luckily, the 52-year-old has since woken up and posted a few updates on social media to
keep fans in the know about his prognosis and recovery. In a Jan. 4 Instagram post, he wrote,