Harry Potter stunt double could ‘hear spinal cord crunching’ after set accident left him paralysed
The stunt double for Daniel Radcliffe during the Harry Potter movies has said he could hear how bad his injuries were after an accident left him paralysed.
Former gymnast David Holmes was hired to be Radcliffe's stunt double for the movies after being talent spotted by stunt co-ordinator Greg Powell and asked to do a broomstick test.
However, a terrible accident which occurred during filming of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One left David paralysed.
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During a scene in the penultimate Harry Potter movie where Harry is attacked by the giant snake Nagini and thrown backwards, the stunt team were trying to get the perfect shot and added more weight to the pulleys that would drag David back.
The idea was to make him go faster and have the moment looking more dramatic, but David was seriously injured doing the stunt and told The Guardian he 'knew straight away' that he'd broken his neck.
He was rushed to hospital and doctors determined that he'd been paralysed from the chest down with movement in his arms and hands also limited.
Holmes is now the subject of a documentary being produced by Radcliffe titled David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived.
Radcliffe and Holmes quickly became friends on the set of the Harry Potter movies as they worked closely together before the stunt accident.
Holmes told The Guardian that the way of doing stunts that left him paralysed isn't done any more because of his accident.
"I’d hear the noise in my head of the crunching of my spinal cord. That would happen as I was falling asleep," he told them of the PTSD he suffered with in the aftermath.
He said being Radcliffe's stunt double was even better than getting the lead role in Harry Potter as you 'get to be a character without the pressures the actors have'.
These days David hosts the podcast Cunning Stunts, which Radcliffe has appeared on, and he said he can't believe how ripped the Harry Potter star is nowadays.
Holmes had started out as Radcliffe's PE coach, but revealed to The Guardian that when it was time for training he'd 'let him be a kid' and said their exercise was 'judo, boxing, sword fighting, anything he wanted to do that day'.
He said: "On the first two films he was like my little brother, and by the third film he’d grown into one of my best friends and still is to this day."
Topics: Celebrity, TV and Film, Harry Potter, Daniel Radcliffe
Joe Harker