10 On-Set Injuries That Forever Changed Actors

All those death-defying stunts we saw Harry Potter perform weren’t the work of Daniel Radcliffe and a crap-tonne of crafty CGI but his trusty stunt double David Holmes. The actor worked as Radcliffe’s double for the first six Harry Potter movies until tragedy struck while rehearsing for The Deathly Hallows Part 1.

While Holmes was performing an aerial stunt that involved being pulled backwards at high speed by a wire he was slammed into a wall before hurtling to a crash mat on the ground below. The accident broke the stunt actor’s neck and left him paralysed from the waist down.

Holmes’ injury was undoubtedly a life-changing one but he was determined to stay positive and not let his disability define him. He now gets his adrenaline fix careering around race tracks at ridiculously high speeds in a specially modified car and has also podcasted about his experience with spinal injury alongside setting himself the not too tiny task of helping to raise £15 million to fund new equipment for the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital where he spent six months following the accident.