10 On-Set Injuries That Forever Changed Actors

Silent film star Wallace Reid was en route to a location in northern California to shoot exterior scenes for the 1919 romantic drama The Valley of the Giants when a terrifying railway accident led to injuries that spawned a devastating drug addiction that would claim his life just a few years later.

Reid and a number of co-stars and crew were travelling via a rickety railroad when their caboose toppled off a trestle bridge and rolled 15 feet into a creek below. Most of the passengers were injured and though Reid sustained a head wound, a cut to his arm that went to the bone and damage to his back he gamely attended to his colleagues’ wounds before being treated himself.

It’s what came after the accident that would cause his downfall, however. In order to cope with the pain from his injuries and continue filming Reid was given morphine. This quickly developed into an all-consuming habit that – rumour has it – the studios Reid worked with were only too happy to feed as long as it kept their cash cow churning out movies.

In 1923, four short years after the accident, Reid died while undergoing rehab at a sanitarium at the tender age of 31.